


Momentum

by codeandcreativity



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Consent is Sexy, Dubious Consent, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Sexual Assault, Slow Burn, Smart is Sexy, Spencer Reid Deserves to be Happy, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:46:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29171337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codeandcreativity/pseuds/codeandcreativity
Summary: After the BAU suffers a tragic loss, Spencer Reid finds a kindred spirit in the team's newest member, Eliza Hale. When Hale and JJ are kidnapped by an unsub, Reid and the team are faced with the unthinkable possibility that the BAU's losses are yet to be measured.
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/William LaMontagne Jr., Luke Alvez/Penelope Garcia, Spencer Reid/Original Character(s), Spencer Reid/Original Female Character(s), Tara Lewis/Emily Prentiss
Comments: 16
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Canon divergent beginning Season 5. Major character death referenced. Canon-typical violence. Consensual sexual encounters may be explicit. Non-consensual sexual encounters will be described with only enough detail to serve the plot, and will NOT be explicit. CONSENT IS SEXY (pass it on).
> 
> This story is plotted out through 20+ chapters. Slow/medium burn with lots of vignette-style plot early and multi-chapter plot later. It wouldn't fly as a book, but this is fanfiction, and we're here to have fun... right? Thanks for reading!
> 
> Chapter episode references: 4.17 Demonology; 4.24 Amplification; 4.26 ...and Back; & 5.01 Nameless, Faceless. Assumes the season 4 finale and season five premiere are back-to-back days in May 2009.
> 
> Tumblr: codeandcreavitity

_“The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable.” -Oscar Wilde_

**June 2009**

Reid gasped and struggled ineffectually against the sensation of being pinned down, immobilized by the searing heat of pain. Some days, he woke to the blank, innocuous feeling of normalcy, body tired and leg aching, but cottoned in ignorance, if only for a moment. More often, he woke in this panic, increasingly familiar but no less frightening for that familiarity.

It wasn’t just the living memory of being shot; it was the knowledge of everything that came to him after. Everything that Emily hadn’t told him. Everything she'd borne on her own for those hours, the increasing anxiety he'd felt sitting in Dr. Barton’s study, the irrational notion that came so rarely to him that the day would end badly.

_I’m fine. You need to find Emily. Call Emily. Something’s happened to Hotch._

He’d felt all the breath leave him as he hit the ground. He didn’t remember firing his own gun, something he hadn’t confided to anyone yet. Not the FBI-mandated counselor. Not Emily or Morgan, not even JJ.

In his nightmares, his hand felt numb, the recoil of the revolver little more than pressure against his palm.

_I’m fine call Emily something’s happened to Hotch._

The memory, obscured as it was by adrenaline, had become a muddle of physiological and emotional responses, synapses firing in his brain, overwhelming him with anxiety and pain. A primal, essential fear.

_Imfinecallemilysomethingshappened._

JJ had knelt beside him, cushioning the back of his head with her hand as she encouraged him to lie down on the grass. “Spence…”

“You need to call Emily.”

JJ had pursed her lips. “Rossi is calling her now. What can I do?” she’d asked, her free hand hovering aimlessly over his leg.

“Barton said it went through,” he’d said through gritted teeth. He’d closed his eyes against the impossibly bright blue of the sky, felt her wandering hand come up to shield his eyes.

"I can hear the ambulance. Help is almost here. What should I tell them?”

“I’m fine,” he’d insisted again, though the adrenaline had begun to fade, pain blooming from the wound above his knee. “Call Emily.”

“Shit,” JJ had murmured above him. “I need you to relax, Spence. Rossi is talking to Emily. Let’s take care of you.” He’d felt her weight shift as she’d glanced back over her shoulder. He’d opened his eyes to see her blond head haloed by the mid-afternoon sun.

“Don’t worry,” he’d said. “If the bullet had hit the femoral artery, I’d be dead already.” He’d grimaced and closed his eyes again.

JJ had glared at him then, her eyes the same impossible blue as the sky. She’d been annoyed with him, for just a moment. “You’re an idiot.”

“It was supposed to make you feel better,” he’d argued, feeling a bit more himself even as the pain expanded from his knee to his stomach, then his chest.

She’d smiled tightly. “Medics are here.”

Panic had pulsed through him then, a sudden terror that mixed furiously with the pain until he’d felt he would vomit. “No pain meds.” He’d fished for her hand with his own, grasping her fingers with his bloody ones as he tried to pull himself up to sitting.

“Spence, stay down…”

“No narcotics.” He’d meant to sound forceful, but the words had rushed out of him in desperation. “Don’t let them…”

“I’ll tell them,” JJ had promised, squeezing his fingers. She’d placed his hand down gently as she rose to her feet.

Reid vaguely remembered squinting at her profile as she spoke efficiently to the paramedics, struggling to understand her even with the visual cues of her lips forming the words.

“…October…” she’d said. “…A-B…migraines…narcotics…”

“No,” he’d gasped. _No narcotics._

His vision had begun to darken at the edges then, and his memory became increasingly unreliable.

_Callemilysomethingshappened…_

Reid pushed himself up awkwardly, throwing off sweat-dampened sheets. His injured leg lay before him, heavy and useless in its neoprene brace. He fumbled on the bedside table for his cell phone, squinting blearily at the time on the lock screen. He closed his eyes. All he wanted in that moment was to go back to sleep and pretend that those three weeks in May had never happened. 

In less than 10 days, he’d been admitted to the hospital twice. The first time, he’d been choking on his own blood, poisoned with a toxin that had nearly taken his life. A week later, he’d been shot just above the knee, rushed from the scene to the emergency room to the surgical theater, the first of three operations over nine days to repair and stabilize his leg.

The doctors had told him he might never walk without an aid again. It would be the end of his career as a field agent, the physical exercise of his intellect and desire to help others. He couldn’t shake the desperate feeling that, if he were confined to a desk job, his family - Morgan, JJ, Garcia, Emily, and Rossi - would go on without him. That, even if his value as an FBI agent didn’t diminish, the time he spent with them would wane until he was, as he had so often been in his life, an outsider.

The opening chords of “Heroes” by David Bowie - “A very important song, Dr. Reid” - sounded from his phone, still clutched in his hand. He spared himself a quirk of a smile and tried to shake off the cloak of self pity. “Hi, Garcia.”

“Oh, I miss hearing that sweet voice! I just wanted to call to let you know that we miss you and we’re thinking of you and we can’t wait to have you back and oh, god, how are you feeling? Are you in a lot of pain? JJ told me… Don’t worry about that. JJ didn’t tell me anything. That’s your business. Anyway, it’s not the same without… and you, of course you! I’m the only genius on the team right now and I have to tell you, sweet thing, it’s taking its toll…”

Reid laughed quietly. “I miss you, too, Garcia.”

“That’s enough evasion from you. How are you feeling?”

“I’ve spoken five words in this conversation…” he protested.

“And yet you haven’t answered any of my questions!”

He could envision her twirling a pen with a fuzzy pink topper in her joyfully manicured fingers, a teasing grin on her face. “I’m fine. I miss you all, too. The pain is perfectly manageable.” Reid smiled. The day seemed a bit brighter, a undeniable result of the Garcia Effect. “I can’t wait to be back.”

* * *

“We could have used your help a few weeks ago.” Rossi leaned back in his chair, hands laced casually behind his head.

“I think the brass at Fort Detrick were pissed enough to have the BAU around,” Eliza said, taking a sip of tea. “The DoD prefers to be in charge of covering its own ass.”

Rossi’s lips turned up in a sardonic smile. “True. Besides, you were consulting on the Oath Keepers thing in Arizona, right?”

“C’mon, Rossi.”

Rossi raised his hands in defeat, rocking forward in his chair to place his feet firmly on the ground beneath his desk. “Sorry I asked!”

“You should be.” A lone arched eyebrow broke Eliza’s deadpan facade.

“You know I’m on your side, kiddo.” Rossi reached for a short pile of folders, sliding them from his inbox to the leather blotter at the center of his desk.

Eliza held her mentor’s gaze icily. “The FBI compartmentalizes confidential information for a reason.” Her eyes softened slightly. “Civilian lives are the main priority. How we get that done is sometimes…”

“Classified,” Rossi finished.

“Right.” Eliza leaned forward, eyeing the folders under Rossi’s hands. What do you have for me today?”

“Redacted,” he joked, flipping open the top folder. He handed over a crime scene photo, devoid of the typical numbered yellow markers. “What do you see? Wait.” He held up his right hand, looking to his watch on the left. “Sixty seconds… starting… now.”

Eliza’s heart raced in the way it always seemed to when Rossi started one of these case study “games” with her. She didn’t know if it was the thrill of the challenge, the knowledge that she was being singled out by one of the brightest minds the Bureau had ever known, or the compelling - and nerve-wracking - desire to perform well.

Better than well. _Perfectly. Impeccably. Insightfully._

Hands in her lap, Eliza leaned over the photo, doing a cursory scan of the photo: bed, dresser, lamp. A bedroom. And what might have been missing: bedside table, mirror, maybe a rug? She set the basics to the side to examine the objects present.

The bed, made up with an older quilt, a single pillow in an off-white case with visibly linear creases, an antique brass frame unevenly polished, perhaps due to its age. She followed the line of the frame to the hardwood floor, which appeared to be marred with scuff marks.

The dresser. Also an antique, with a large backboard, draped in a white sheet: the missing mirror, covered. The sheet flowed over the top of the dresser, a backdrop for a series of trinkets and bottles with a distinctly religious appearance. She could almost smell the aroma of a censer.

The lamp, another antique, several feet from the bed. Too far to reach.

No natural light…

“Time,” said Rossi, taking the photo back.

Eliza’s mind kept working while the image was still in the forefront of her memory, even as she began to speak. “It’s an older bedroom, possibly in an older house, based on the antique bed frame, quilt, the condition of the hardwood floors, and the visible lower half of the dresser. The depth of the mattress indicates that it is a more recent make, and the pillowcase is almost certainly new, based on the creasing running vertical to the placement of the pillow.”

“Hey, Dave, you said you wanted a minute this morning?” Eliza turned to see the BAU’s acting unit chief in the doorway. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you were busy. Let me know when you’re done?”

Rossi waved the dark-haired woman in. “Emily, come in.”

“I don’t want to interrupt,” Emily said. 

“Nonsense. Emily, this is Dr. Eliza Hale from Domestic Terrorism. Eliza, Unit Chief Emily Prentiss.”

Eliza rose, too quickly not to be awkward. “It’s nice to meet you,” she rushed as she reached to shake Emily’s hand.

“You, too,” Emily said with a genuine smile. 

“I can come back later,” Eliza offered, glancing back and forth between Rossi and Emily.

“You’re not done now,” Rossi said, faking austerity. “Sit down and keep going.”

Eliza took her seat with a bit more decorum than she’d left it. She began to speak slowly, looking once more to Emily before focusing on Rossi. Trying to focus, at any rate. 

_Perfectly. Impeccably. Insightfully._

“The mirror is covered and there’s no external light, indicating that any exterior window is covered. There are religious artifacts on the dresser, maybe rosewater, a rosary, a pocket Bible. The room likely belongs to an invalid or to a loved one that recently died...” Eliza felt Emily stiffen behind her, and checked her own posture in response.

“Which one is it?” Rossi interrupted.

Eliza paused a moment. “Both,” she said finally, looking up at him. “There are significant wear marks on the hardwood where the bed frame meets the floor, indicating that someone slept there who suffered from a convulsive disorder.” She pursed her lips. “Or a very active sex life. Regardless, the extent of the damage indicates a repeated behavior, not a single event, so the room’s occupant had a convulsive disorder or experienced frequent seizures as a part of a chronic illness. The windows are closed and the mirrors are covered, both common practices in a variety of religions when a loved one has expired, especially if they died in that space.”

Rossi’s unwavering gaze disturbed her, but she was learning to bear it with some composure over the course of the months that had elapsed since she’d completed her profiling certification. “What else?” he prompted.

“Smaller things. The lamp is too far to reach from the bed, indicating that it was deliberately moved or that there are one or more side tables missing, and possibly a table lamp. The floors have been cleaned recently. There’s no dust anywhere, so it’s difficult to tell if any furniture has been moved.” Eliza paused again as Emily moved from the doorway to lean against the corner of Rossi’s desk, arms crossed.

“Keep going,” Emily said, her voice tight. Tension seemed to vibrate in the air between the BAU’s acting unit chief and its co-founder.

Eliza almost bit her lip, a terrible habit, but corrected herself. “If we’re going with the invalid theory, those items may have been deliberately moved to prevent a person from injuring him- or herself. The same could be true of the absence of a rug. On a hardwood floor, that could be slippery, a fall risk. But if this is, in fact, and older home, a rug would be almost essential in most climates in the country, as a significant portion of the country experiences temperatures below freezing at some point during the winter.”

“Why do you assume this photo was taken in the winter?” Emily asked.

“There’s a Hudson’s Bay blanket on the bed under the quilt. The four-stripe pattern is unmistakable to me based on where I grew up. If it’s not authentic, it’s a knockoff, but I’d wager it’s wool.”

“And the location?” Emily prodded.

“The FBI wouldn’t consult on an equivocal death investigation outside the United States. If this isn’t an equivocal death, it’s a murder, in which case the FBI only has jurisdiction stateside.”

“And you’re positive this is an FBI case?” Rossi teased.

“Yes,” Eliza answered in a matching tone. “The photograph is in an FBI folder with an authentic case number, on top of which these exercises wouldn’t be particularly telling if the scene wasn’t at the very least a faithful recreation of an actual case. Within the past five years, if the photo quality is anything to go off of.”

Rossi smirked. “Most of your assumptions you could have confirmed or expounded upon if you had access to the crime scene during the active investigation.”

“But?” Eliza prompted.

“With access to the ME report, you should be able to narrow down or revise many of your incorrect assumptions.” He handed over a partially redacted copy of the report. 

Eliza felt Emily’s eyes boring through the crown of her head as she bent to review the report. “Ligature marks on the wrists and ankles,” she murmured. “Evidence of internal head trauma, with exterior abrasions. Severe dehydration. Cause of death: heart attack.” She looked up, first at Emily, then Rossi. “So it was a murder.”

Rossi nodded. “How does that alter your view of the crime scene?”

“The marks on the floor are evidence of a struggle between the unsub and the victim.” She glanced up and to her left, past Emily’s stoic glare, recalling the details she’d noticed but not yet shared. “The uneven polish at the top of the bed frame. The victim was tied to the frame, likely by both the hands and feet, though there’s no evidence of the latter in photo. As he struggled, the ligatures rubbed against the frame, sort of… polishing the metal.” She paused. “He was tied for enough time to become dehydrated, and he struggled vigorously enough that his weakened body gave out, inciting a fatal cardiac event.”

“You’re right,” Emily said to Rossi without taking her eyes off the woman seated before them. “She’s good.”

Eliza’s heart finally slowed as she sensed the end of the exercise. She felt as if air were pouring into her lungs properly for the first time in minutes. “Are you going to tell me what happened?” she asked with some hesitation. Something about this case had obviously rubbed Emily wrong, but Eliza had the distinct impression that Rossi had chosen this case, at this time, with this audience, on purpose.

“The case is closed but hasn’t yet gone to trial,” Rossi said with a smirk. “I’m not sure I can divulge details to someone outside the BAU.”

“I swear to god, Rossi…” Eliza murmured.

“You’re agnostic.”

“Unsanctioned exorcism,” Emily interjected.

Eliza looked up sharply. “Really?” she asked, even as she rearranged the evidence with which she’d been presented to match the ultimate conclusion. The covered mirror, the closed window, the religious paraphernalia, the objects moved away from the bed or removed entirely.

“Really,” Emily said levelly.

Rossi leaned back in his chair again, fingers twined behind his head, Italian leather shoes on the blotter. “To be fair, you lacked the circumstances which drew us to the case,” he said, eyes shifting briefly to Emily and then away.

Eliza reached for her tea, tapping her fingers restlessly against the side of the to-go cup. The tension in the room was ebbing and flowing in a way she couldn’t begin to comprehend, with so little background. “So you had me profile a crime scene.”

“Your assumptions were basically correct. You identified several important pieces of evidence and placed them into context of what happened and how. You didn’t identify the why, but you remarked on the likely relevance of the objects which pointed to the why. That’s not something everyone can do.”

“OK,” Eliza said, finally taking a drink of her tea. It had gone mostly cold, but she visualized the flow of caffeine into her system and it helped rejuvenate her. She sighed inwardly, trying not to feel defeated. She’d passed up fellowship offers from the Smithsonian and the Ashmolean to work a desk job at Quantico. She’d spent years of her life in windowless rooms, reading, studying, analyzing, and always, always somehow being valued less than the men around her, in every way imaginable.

_Perfectly. Impeccably. Insightfully._

_Better._

“You studied sociology at Georgetown?” Emily asked, startling Eliza out of her thoughts. 

“Uh, yeah. Yes. My research is largely in shifting identities and semiotics, so this is a little out of my wheelhouse...”

“And you’ve been in Domestic Terrorism since 2007?” Emily interrupted.

“Two years last month.” Eliza looked to Rossi, whose face was studiously blank. He shrugged. Eliza didn’t buy it.

“But you’re not a field agent,” Emily said.

Eliza cocked her head slightly. “Not yet. But you know that. And you know I want to work in the field.”

Emily crossed her arms over her chest, a sly smile on her lips. “OK. What else do I know?”

“You know that I have qualified to work in the field since I graduated from the academy. You know that Domestic Terrorism wasn’t my first choice, but that I have earned two commendations during my work there. You know that I have never shot less than a 94 at my semi-annual firearms test. You know that I finished my profiling certification four months ago. You know I want this,” Eliza finished breathlessly. “I want to be here. At the BAU.”

“Dave tells me your insights are exceptional,” Emily said after a beat. “That you’re brilliant and that you don’t take his shit.”

_Insightful. Exceptional._

“She’s just got to get out of her head a little,” Rossi added.

“That’s true of all of us,” Emily said genially.

Eliza rose from her seat, hands clasped in front of her for a moment before she shook them loose at her sides. “I know the BAU is… grieving,” she began.

“We have work to do,” Emily said in a voice that indicated she wouldn’t be _acting_ unit chief for long. “And we need the best people available to do it.” She looked to Rossi, who nodded. “If you’re serious about this, I’ll start the paperwork this afternoon.”

Eliza blinked. “Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you.”

“You’re going to need to work on your poker face,” Emily said. To Rossi, she added, “You could have just told me you wanted to call her in for an interview.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reid returns to work. Cinnamon rolls meet. Garcia and Morgan are Garcia and Morgan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what perspective this fic is from. I'm hoping it'll tell me soon. In the meantime, just pretending it's... fun to write things? It's very dialogue heavy at this point. I just needed to put something out there to force myself to keep going.
> 
> Tumblr: codeandcreativity

_"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don_ _t resist them; that only creates sorrow." - Lao Tzu_

**July 2009**

A warm, early morning light flooded across the chess board. Reid caressed the white knight with the tip of his index finger, tipping it back and forth idly. Most of the time, he kept the gauzy curtains of his living room closed in an effort to protect the most precious of his collected books, but of late he found it difficult to keep his mood up in the darkened interior of his apartment. There was a time when seven weeks alone in a small apartment with only his books and strategy board games would have passed with contemplative ease. That time, itself, had passed.

His leg hurt, his mind raced, and, of all things, he needed his people. His family.

A series of rhythmic thumps up the stairs beyond his apartment pulled Reid from his thoughts. The sound continued to the landing, down the hallway to his door, and halted with a few short knocks.

“Your chariot awaits, Boy Genius!”

Reid frowned. “Garcia?” He scrambled across the floor on his crutches to unlock the door.

The blond offered a cheery smile and wave, breaching the threshold without warning or invitation. “Good morning! You look great!” She smoothed her her hand across the arm of his jacket. “Are you ready to go?”

Reid took a moment to process the unexpected intrusion. He’d let a little light in through the windows and suddenly there was a supernova in his foyer. “I thought you were going to text me when you got here? So I could meet you downstairs?”

“Oh!” Garcia pulled a bedazzled cell phone out of thin air and tapped the screen a few times with lime green nails. “There!”

Reid leaned awkwardly on one crutch to pull his buzzing phone out of his pocket.

_Penelope Garcia: Here!_

Reid puffed his cheeks out in silent exasperation. “Thanks.” He hobbed the few feet to his desk and managed to sling his satchel across his body despite the cumbersome crutches. “You didn’t have to come up, you know.”

Garcia’s omnipresent ebullience narrowed into a powerful glare. “Your building doesn’t have an elevator - which is not ADA-compliant, by the way - and I knew you’d try to get downstairs on your own with those awful crutches and this bulky…” she paused to gesticulate at his thigh-to-ankle leg brace “…and that bag of yours.”

“What’s wrong with my bag?” He asked, his voice rising in pitch as he glanced down at his well-loved satchel.

“It’s not your bag so much as… your athletic prowess,” Garcia teased. “Do you want help down the stairs or not?”

“Not,” Reid grumbled as they stepped into the hallway. He turned to lock the door behind them, nearly losing his balance as he fumbled with his keys.

Garcia snatched the keys from his hands and locked the door. “Oh, my dear Dr. Reid, ‘not’ is _not_ among your options.”

Relenting, Reid handed over one of his crutches, relying on the other and the handrail to begin making his way down the stairs from his apartment. “I’m fine,” he muttered under his breath, feeling next to useless as Garcia - to her credit, subtly - spotted him down two full flights of stairs and into the lobby.

“So, I’m Mondays,” she said cheerily once they were in the car and on their way to Quantico. “JJ will do Tuesdays, Morgan on Wednesdays, Rossi on Thursdays, and Emily has Fridays.”

Reid tipped his head back against the seat of Garcia’s garish orange Cadillac. While he was easily the least coordinated member of the BAU’s elite field team, he could handle himself in the face of a threat and, more to the point, he could handle the trip to and from Quantico on his usual train. “You guys don’t need to baby me.”

“We’re not babying you,” she argued. “We’re helping you. Because you’re our friend.” She checked her blind spot quickly, then changed lanes. “Because friends don’t let friends ride the train to work when they’re all… shot and stuff.”

“I’d be fine, Garcia. It’s just one transfer.”

“It’s ninety minutes, two platforms, plus the walk from your apartment to the station and the station to campus!” Garcia exclaimed. “And then all that back again at the end of the day.” She paused. “Your body wouldn’t be able to hold up to all of that stress… even if you were taking your pain meds.”

Reid closed his eyes. “You know I can’t take those.”

“I know, my love,” she said softly.

“Thank you for the ride,” he said finally, fiddling with the strap of his bag. His lips twitched in the semblance of a smile. “And thank you for looking out for me.”

Garcia flashed a dazzling grin. “Anything for you, you know that. You know that, right?”

In a moment, Reid’s brain offered up a selection from five years’ worth of memories, of inoffensive touches and air kisses, cups of coffee and baked goods, of smiles and laughter, and of gentle teasing and humbling emotional support. He breathed out some of the tension. “I do.”

* * *

Eliza paused at the threshold of the bullpen. For the first time in her five weeks as a member of the BAU, the desk adjacent to hers was occupied. The inimitable Dr. Spencer Reid was back at Quantico and, if the gathering around his chair was an indication, an impromptu welcoming party was in progress.

 _Perhaps not so impromptu,_ she thought. _Not with Garcia involved._

Eliza bit her lip as she watched through the glass as the team, minus Emily and Rossi, celebrated Reid’s return. Garcia was nearly effervescent , a cherry-lipped grin plastered on her face as she bustled around Reid, arranging a vase of flowers, a novelty TARDIS mug, a tin of cookies, and a bedazzled hand bell on his desk. Morgan mussed Reid’s hair affectionately before leaning down for a modified bro hug. JJ perched on the corner of Reid’s desk, hiding a sisterly smile behind her coffee mug.

The team’s dynamic had been under extreme duress, its vocational and familial functions restructuring around the loss of leader and figurehead Aaron Hotchner. Eliza had felt like a boorish intruder as she slid her bag and a box of personal belongings onto the desk so recently vacated by Emily. Their awkwardly contrived introduction had done little for Eliza’s confidence, but it was obvious early on that Emily was made of brassy stuff.

If Emily Prentiss wanted to be simpered to, she’d tell you.

JJ had initially played her cards close to her vest, but Garcia’s insistence on making Eliza a “member of the family” had lowered the other woman’s wall fairly quickly. Eliza could feel JJ evaluating her from time to time, not unkindly; while Garcia had decided Eliza belonged, JJ hadn’t determined where.

Morgan had been the easiest relationship to acquire. His geniality and self-confidence left little to concern him, and his tendency was to take those he met at face value and re-evaluate as necessary. It had taken him less than a week after Garcia ‘hacked’ into Eliza’s personnel file to start tossing nicknames her way; he seemed to be waiting to see if one would stick.

Now, just as Eliza was starting to feel out her place in the dynamic, Reid was back, and her social anxiety ratcheted up again. She had faith in her intellect and her hard-earned skills, but there was a demonstrable asymmetry between the thoughts in her head and the words issued from her mouth in strictly social situations.

“Are you going to stand out here all morning or…”

Eliza startled. “You scared the crap out of me.”

Rossi grinned, pulling open the door to the bullpen and ushering her through. “The kid doesn’t bite.”

Eliza huffed a laugh. “I’m not worried about him.”

“Yeah, you are,” Rossi teased. “But you shouldn’t be. You two are going to get on like a house on fire and it’s the rest of us who are going to have to tolerate it.”

 _Right_ , Eliza thought, feeling her face flush. She’d seen Reid in passing during her irregular tutorials with Rossi, but had yet to meet him properly. She was thoroughly torn between being intimidated by his considerable intellect and overenthusiastic about the opportunity to converse with that intellect.

“Young Dr. Reid!” Rossi bellowed as he sauntered across the bullpen. “Welcome back!” He enveloped the younger man in a hug, then turned and extended his arm to Eliza. “It is my considerable pleasure to introduce you to the equally young Dr. Eliza Hale.”

Reid grinned. “Thanks.” He tilted his head to see around Rossi. Confusion marred his features for a minute. “You’re Dr. Hale?” he asked, sizing up the young woman. In low heeled boots, she stood a few inches shorter than Rossi. Brunette waves, sharp gray blue eyes, no visible jewelry, and just enough make up to be deemed professional. Her watch, a decent timepiece with a functional nylon strap, loose enough on her left wrist to slide several fingers through. A leather book bag that appeared as though it had traveled years as her companion. The set of her jaw and shoulder made Reid certain that she was used to being underestimated.

Eliza made up the distance between them and held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Reid’s hand twitched. “I don’t…”

“Spence doesn’t shake,” JJ said, her tone simultaneously helpful and teasing.

“Oh, sorry.” Eliza dropped her hand, bringing it to the strap of her book bag, where she unconsciously caressed the well-worn leather with her thumb.

“The number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering. It’s actually safer to kiss.” Panic flashed in Reid’s eyes. “Not that I’m suggesting...” He cut himself off, turning to glare at Morgan as the latter guffawed.

“I… didn’t think you were?” Eliza ventured, the corner of her mouth quirking up in a bemused grin.

Reid’s expression shifted again, this time to fascination. She felt absolutely pinned by it. “You’re Dr. Elizabeth Hale? You wrote _Bounded Choice: The Fusion of Personal Freedom and Self-Renunciation in Two Transcendent Groups_?”

Eliza stared in disbelief. “You read my dissertation?”

All traces of embarrassment and confusion left Reid’s face as he leaned forward, nodding eagerly. “You revised it for publication in the July 2007 issue of the _American Journal of Sociology_ …”

“Yeah,” Eliza said, grinning. She slid her bag off her shoulder and placed it on the floor as she sat in her desk chair. Unconsciously, she mimicked his body language, elbows on her knees as she leaned towards him.

Reid’s warm brown eyes shone with excitement. “You theorized that the combination of ideology, social structure, and commitments uniquely constrains the choice of true believers as they are required to yield aspects of their identity to the group.”

“House on fire,” Rossi said heartily, squeezing Eliza’s shoulder. He nodded at Reid. “It’s good to have you back, kid.”

“We’re headed to Maryland.” The gathered agents looked up as Emily spoke from the walkway above the bullpen. She handed a thin file folder down to JJ. “Can you make a couple copies for the car? We’ll brief on the way.” JJ nodded and disappeared towards her office.

“What’s our timeline?” Morgan asked.

“We’re three hours in. CARD is on the way.” Emily tossed an apologetic smile in Reid’s direction. “Party’s over. Welcome back.”

“We’ll catch up soon, pretty boy,” Morgan said, clapping Reid on the shoulder. He winked at Eliza and added, “You can finish flirting later.”

“We weren’t flirting.” Eliza glared at Morgan. As much as she enjoyed his company and respected his skills as an agent, his machismo was downright triggering at times.

“I wasn’t…” Reid mumbled.

Garcia hustled Morgan towards his own desk. “That’s not flirting. That’s called ‘nerding out.’”

“I call ‘em like I see ‘em, baby girl,” Morgan said jauntily. Reid fiddled pointlessly with a pen on his desk.

“That’s flirting,” Rossi said pointedly, looking between Morgan and Garcia. “Let the nerds be.”

“Hey!” Reid protested.

Eliza watched as their colleagues moved off purposefully, checking weapons and credentials and gathering travel accoutrements from desk drawers. She bit her lip, then said quietly, “Is he always like that?”

Reid tilted his head at her tone. “Morgan? Yeah, usually. Does it bother you?”

Eliza shrugged. “I’m just trying to figure out how a single man with one of the purest intersexual platonic relationships I’ve ever seen can be such a…”

“Horn dog?” Reid supplied.

Eliza turned her head slowly, mouth agape in wonder. “Did Dr. Spencer Reid just say ‘horn dog’?” she mused, her lips widening into a grin.

Reid nodded proudly, eyes sparkling. “Morgan taught me that.”

Stunned momentarily, Eliza just stared. “Amazing.”

“D1, let’s go!” Morgan called from the entrance to the bullpen, tossing out his current choice of moniker for her. 

Eliza grabbed her bag while Reid reached for his crutches. “To be continued,” she said with a wink.

Rossi came down the stairs from his office, go-bag over his shoulder. “Not you, Reid. You’re not cleared to travel.”

“This is local,” Reid protested, looking from Rossi to Emily as the latter descended to the bullpen.

Garcia appeared at Reid’s shoulder. “Nope,” she said, popping the ‘p.’ “They’re going to Maryland. You and I are staying in Virginia.”

“But…”

The blond’s grin was too joyful to be menacing. “You’re my bitch now.”

* * *

**August 2009**

“Oh, Eliza’s here! Come here, come here.” Garcia stood behind Reid’s chair, waving enthusiastically. Reid felt several terribly wonderful things at once, including joy at the sight of the BAU’s most recent addition and embarrassment at Garcia’s enthusiasm.

Eliza grinned. “To my own desk?” she asked, weaving through the bullpen.

“Sorry,” JJ said, shifting from her perch on Eliza’s desk.

Eliza shook her off. “Hey, JJ. You’re fine,” she said as she shrugged off her book bag and placed it on the floor. “Good morning to you, too, Penelope. Reid.”

“She’s a bit over excited,” JJ mock whispered.

“She’s never seen the good doctor’s physics magic,” Garcia protested. She put her hand on Reid’s shoulder and squeezed. Reid blushed.

“What’s physics magic?”

“It’s when Spence does a magic trick that’s actually a demonstration of a basic physics principle,” JJ said over her shoulder.

“And then we usually get in trouble,” Reid began with a proud, childlike smile. His face fell. He, JJ, and Garcia were quiet for a beat. They could all hear the end of the sentence that never came: _with Hotch_.

“I need a quarter and a dime,” said Reid after a moment. He glanced up at Garcia expectantly.

“You don’t have any change in your desk?” she asked.

Reid stared at her. “While coins are the cleanest of all physical currency with an average germ score of 136, any given coin has a germ score that is 10 times higher than the score of a clean surface off of which one could theoretically eat.”

Garcia took a sip of her coffee.

Reid’s expression didn’t change. “No, I don’t have any change in my desk,” he concluded flatly.

JJ rolled her eyes while Eliza fished in her bag and came up with a handful of coins. She selected a dime and a quarter and placed them on Reid’s desk, careful not to knock over his crutches as she did so.

Reid took a steadying breath, eyeing the coins warily. “For physics magic.” He looked up in a panic. “Not that I think you’re unclean, it’s just…” He flushed a damning shade of pink.

Fighting back the vicarious embarrassment, Eliza forced a small smile. “I know that’s not what you meant.”

“None of us thought that,” JJ said in a soothing tone.

“Right. OK.” Reid grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil. He traced the outline of the dime, then speared a hole in the paper with a pair of scissors, carefully cutting a dime-sized hole. He held out the paper with both hands. “OK, drop the dime through the hole.”

JJ picked up the dime and dropped it easily through the hole. “OK. Now what?”

“Now put the quarter through the hole, without tearing the paper,” Reid instructed, the corners of his mouth twitching in the beginnings of a delighted grin.

“OK…” JJ took the paper and settled the quarter perpendicular to the hole, twisting the paper carefully to avoid tearing it. The larger coin could not be coerced through the hole. She turned and offered the paper and quarter to Garcia, who had similar luck.

“Newbie?” Garcia asked.

“Not a clue,” Eliza said, hiding a smile behind a sip from her to-go cup.

Reid reached for the items. Garcia and JJ leaned in. He held up the paper theatrically, then folded it precisely in half. He dropped the quarter between the halves of the paper; it came to rest partially through the hole, no better or worse than the women’s attempts. His lips parted breathlessly as he moved his fingers to the outside edges of the fold and gently lifted those edges up, pushing them towards one another. The quarter slide through the dime-sized hole and landed with a _plink_ on his desk.

Garcia applauded joyfully while JJ smiled, entertained as much by the trick as by her friends’ glee.

“Physics magic!” Reid declared proudly, a rare full smile brightening his face.

“Very nice, Spence,” JJ said, voice soft with indulgent affection. She rose and ruffled his hair. “I’ll be in my office if anyone needs me.”

“Hey, wait,” Garcia said, hurrying after JJ in colorful platform heels. “I need to talk to you about the thing.”

 _Smooth_ , Reid thought as he ducked his head and busied himself with the detritus on his desk. He felt the blush heating his cheeks as he slipped the paper into the recycling bin and gathered up the coins.

“Here.” He held out the currency and dropped it into her palm, his fingertips grazing hers as he pulled his hand away. “Thanks.”

“Are these magic now?” Eliza teased, tilting her head slightly.

Reid chuckled. “Maybe.”

He watched out of his peripheral vision as she turned to her desk and began to organize it as she did each morning, a sequence of touches that had become pleasantly familiar to him over the past few weeks. A disturbing thought - that her fingers were oddly elegant - crossed his mind unbidden, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably.

Those hands paused midair, as if she knew somehow that he was fixated on them inappropriately. “You OK?” she asked, working the buckle of her watch and placing it face up next to her keyboard.

“I’m fine. Sorry.”

“OK.” Her lips twitched. She reached for her mouse, pushing it around the pad to wake it up.

“You knew,” he said at last.

Eliza glanced over at him. “Knew what?”

“You knew the solution.” Reid cocked his head, waiting for a response. “When Garcia asked if you knew the solution, you lied.”

Eliza lifted her hand from the mouse and let it fall to her lap. “It was a basic demonstration of topology via discrepant event.”

“Why didn’t you say that?” he asked, genuinely curious.

Eliza bit her lip before she spoke. “There would have been no value in doing so. To me or to the group.” At Reid’s blank expression, she continued. “You, JJ, and Penelope have accepted me into your social group and have unconsciously assigned me a value and a role. You all know I’m smart. I don’t need to prove that to you. In fact, if I had demonstrated my knowledge, they may have felt the need to protect you in your role as their guide to the world of _physics magic_ ,” she said, making air quotes. “Their opinion of me, and yours, would likely have been negatively altered, if only mildly, when I interrupted an established social tradition which you all enjoy.”

Reid nodded thoughtfully. “So you lied because there was no value in telling the truth and no consequence to withholding it.”

“Also, you were clearly having fun, and I did not want to get in the way of that.” Eliza smiled, and Reid felt himself grinning in response.

“And you were sure I wouldn’t value you less for having obfuscated,” he fished.

Eliza shrugged. “It was a risk I was willing to take to maintain the status quo of the group dynamic.”

Her eyes sparkled and he felt answering bubbles in his stomach. Just acknowledging that sent heat to his face. In the past, in the presence of a woman to whom he was attracted, Reid had the tendency to hemorrhage IQ points, or at the very least suffer severe speech impairment. In the presence of this woman, all he wanted to do was keeping talking, and encourage her to talk back.

“In that case, I can’t value you less for prioritizing our friends over yourself.”

She laughed, closing her eyes and tilting her head back. “Thanks for that, Reid.”

“Anytime,” he murmured, watching as Eliza turned back to her monitor. Social cues weren’t his forte, but he liked how he felt when she laughed with him.

He was too self-conscious about the way his own heart pounded when she smiled at him to notice the way her pulse fluttered at the hollow of her throat when he smiled back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reid, Eliza, and Garcia attend a Halloween event. Eliza discharges her weapon in the field for the first time, with consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not going to lie. The Halloween bit got away from me. It was supposed to be a fluffy interlude, not (more than) half the chapter. OOPS. 
> 
> References to “The Masque of the Red Death" (Edgar Allen Poe) and Doctor Who (The Silence).
> 
> Tumblr: codeandcreativity

_"The human face is, after all, nothing more nor less than a mask." -Agatha Christie_

**October 2009**

_Emily Prentiss: What. Fresh. Hell._

Garcia grinned, holding out her phone to Eliza and Reid. “I sent Emily that pic that Silence took of us outside.”

“What Silence?” Reid asked, deadpan.

Eliza tipped her mask up to rest atop her head. “That’s amazing,” she laughed. Reid had sketched the mask while Penelope did the actual labor, transforming a store-bought skull mask into an exceptionally detailed work of art which covered Eliza’s face from her forehead to the end of her nose.

The phone chimed and Eliza reached out one blood red fingertip to tap the incoming message. A picture of Emily filled the screen, an unapologetic selfie of their unit chief holding a glass of wine, a bowl of candy on her lap and a black cat on the back of the couch behind her head.

“Is that Sergio?” Reid asked, voice muffled by a Venetian-style plague doctor mask. “I didn’t know Emily had a black cat!”

It had taken some convincing for Reid to acquiesce to the Venetian mask, an elaborately constructed black velvet mask with styled black braid trim accents attached post-purchase (by Garcia, of course) with hot glue. He had initially chosen a faux leather mask with goggles, but Eliza had pointed out that the Venetian style went better with the masquerade theme of the women’s costumes, and he caved without too much in the way of argument. The look was completed by a heavy black robe, a black cowled hood, black gloves, a plague doctor’s hat, and Reid’s own cane.

Eliza’s own costume was less elaborate, consisting primarily of the exquisite mask, a shapeless red faux-satin gown and matching hooded cloak. She wore red ballet flats, despite Garcia’s insistence on red lace-up heels. The latter had asserted that, without heels, Eliza would be several “unnecessary” inches shorter than both Garcia and Reid; Eliza had countered that the Red Death was powerfully dreadful regardless of her height, but that its formidably aspect would be greatly diminished by her falling all over herself all night in “unnecessary” four-inch heels.

Garcia as Edgar Allen Poe completed their group costume, though Reid had argued that her steam punk embellishments did not meet the masquerade theme Eliza had been so insistent was important in the selection of his plague doctor mask.

“You’re malleable, Dr. Reid. It’s an admirable quality when it comes to dress up,” Garcia had quipped. “I, however, cannot negotiate away my own fabulousness.”

Eliza, dipping her fingertips an inch or so into a container of blood red body paint, had laughed in a distinctly unladylike fashion.

Garcia wore a black overcoat over a black petticoat skirt and fishnets, her feet encased in a pair of black platform heels that made Eliza dizzy to look at. The blond wore a white button up shirt, black half-corset, and black ascot under her coat. She completed the look with a quill pen and realistically detailed skull ornament pinned to her coat, and a feathered prop raven perched on her shoulder.

Edgar Allen Poe, the Red Death, and the Plague Doctor, a masquerading interpretation of Poe’s “The Masque of Red Death.”

“Why would I want to be Prince Prospero when I could wear this?” Reid had asked, his voice incredulous, as he pointed over Garcia’s shoulder at a bespectacled Plague Doctor mask on a red-and-black accented website she’d pulled up while they sat in her apartment during an “official planning meeting.”

Reid has mindlessly popped the majority of Garcia’s Halloween candy into his mouth while listening to Eliza wax sociological on Halloween traditions. For Garcia, as much as she loved Reid’s enthusiasm for Samhain - “there are records of the Celts celebrating Samhain as far back as the 10th century!” - and the traditions that grew from it, it was refreshing to hear a different perspective.

Even if Eliza could just about talk Reid under the table when she got going.

“In day-to-day life, gender roles tend to inhibit our ability to make choices,” Eliza had said. “Oh, those are amazing,” she’d interrupted herself, leaning over to admire a pair of black feathered earrings to add to Garcia’s costume, an admirable portion of which the latter already owned. “Anyway, on Halloween, we can take on the role of someone else, to express ourselves outside of the norms assigned to our gender and social class. Women can dress provocatively, men can go in drag, with excuses for our clothing choices automatically assumed. We all have _carte blanche_ to break cultural taboos.”

“In short,” Reid had said, unable to completely refrain himself, “on Halloween, we get to play.”

Garcia had waggled her eyebrows at that. “And play we shall!”

Which plan brought them to the Mansion on O, an iconic DC landmark and unparalleled Halloween hot spot.

“The O was originally designed in 1892 by U.S. Capitol architect Edward Clark, who designed the building as a home for himself and his two brothers, including Speaker of the House James Clark,” Reid offered giddily as they waited at the bar for drinks. “Edward Clark incorporated leftover tiles and wood from various projects throughout the Capitol into the detailing of his home.”

“In the 1930’s, the O was converted into three separate rooming houses for FBI agents during J. Edgar Hoover’s leadership,” added Eliza.

Garcia nodded as if in thought. “Uh huh,” she said absently, raising one black-manicured hand towards the bartender.

“Now the property consists of five interconnected rowhouses and more than 100 rooms of varying architectural, artistic, and design periods, from the Victorian age to a _rt deco/avant garde_ ,” Reid continued, ignorant of the blond’s pointed absence from the conversation.

Eliza touched the fingers of Garcia’s left hand where they hung at her side, a silent “hello.” She turned her body slightly to invite the other woman in and pointed towards the ceiling, shadowed with the thematic lighting. “These hand-painted ceilings are intended for visitors to look up and ‘out of themselves,” she said, eyes flickering across the geometric designs as if she were reading a fascinating novel.

“The stained-glass windows are original Tiffany,” Reid began.

“Oh, look!” Garcia said, grabbing Eliza’s hand. “It’s alcohol time!” She winked and smiled at the bartender, who grinned from behind boldly colored sugar skull face paint. “I love your face. Shit. I mean, your face paint,” she rambled. “I mean, I’m sure the face underneath it is nice, too.”

The bartender laughed heartily. “What can I get you, Mr. Poe?”

“I’ll have a Pink Lady,” Garcia answered, now a blushing Poe, but a happy one. “What do you guys want?”

“Dirty Shirley,” said Eliza salaciously. “It’ll go with my ensemble.”

“Just water is fine,” Reid answered.

“Absolutely not,” Eliza countered. “We’re here to have fun. Water is not fun. Essential for life, but not fun.”

Reid bent down to speak directly in her ear over the jump and whine of the live big band playing in the corner of the room. “I don’t drink,” he whispered. “Alcohol, I mean.”

“Trust me?” Eliza asked, staring straight ahead as she evaluated the complicated feeling that bloomed in her stomach at the feeling of his breath on her face.

Reid hesitated. “Yes?”

Eliza rolled her eyes. “He’ll have a cranberry sparkler,” she said to the bartender. “With a shot of simple syrup.”

 _Virgin?_ the bartender mouthed.

Eliza nodded. _Thank you._

“What’s simple syrup?” Reid asked as Garcia leaned on the bar to chat with the bartender while he prepared their drinks.

“Just sugar,” Eliza said, turning to him. “I think the cranberry will be a little bitter for your sweet tooth.” She grinned.

“No alcohol,” he double-checked.

Her smile softened and she put a hand on his arm in a gesture of support. “None.”

Reid opened his mouth, a look of discomfort on his face. “I don’t drink because…”

Eliza bit her lip. “Not tonight,” she said gently. “Some other time, if you want to.”

That lip biting thing was an awful distraction, Reid thought. Pleasant, but awful. How her red lipstick didn’t suffer, he couldn’t fathom, though a memory of Garcia exclaiming, “Oh, look at this lip stain!” might point to the solution.

“Scavenger hunt?” Eliza offered while he started at her lips.

“Uh, yeah.” He looked up at her guiltily, though the expression was completely hidden by his mask.

Eliza pulled her mask down as Garcia returned with their drinks. “Hold on.” She lifted her hood into place, hiding her French braid beneath the fabric, until the Red Death reappeared. She took her drink from Garcia, watching closely as Reid tasted his. His mouth twitched as he took a sip.

“Too bitter?” Eliza asked apologetically.

“I’m not sure the Plague Doctor ought to be taking crimson-colored drinks from the Red Death, but it suits the theme,” he answered noncommittally.

Garcia sipped daintily at her Pink Lady through a straw. “So, what did I miss?”

“We were thinking about heading over to the scavenger hunt,” Reid offered.

“Hold up,” Eliza said, raising her palm in Reid’s direction. She looked pointedly at the bartender. “What did we miss?”

Garcia smiled coyly, holding up a folded bar napkin between her index and middle fingers. She slipped the napkin into her pocket and took another coquettish sip of her drink.

Reid looked back and forth between the two women in confusion. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, my dear boy genius.”

Eliza smirked. “It means Garcia’s going to abandon us when the bar closes.”

“Hey!” Garcia protested. “I’m a little classier than that. District Taco is open until two for a _D_ _ía de Muertos_ party!”

Reid frowned, a moue visible beneath his mask. “I don’t understand.”

Eliza’s eyes sparkled with mirth. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go start the scavenger hunt and see if we can find some rooms they don’t want us in.” She nodded rapidly, bounding on her toes in anticipation.

Reid turned his confusion towards Eliza. “Why would we want to do that?”

Eliza stared at Garcia before turning slowly back to Reid. “Oh my god. For fun, Reid!” She grabbed his hand, pulling him towards the desk that marked the start of the hunt. He stumbled, putting more weight on his cane than he meant to. “Sorry,” Eliza grimaced, putting her hands on his waist as he regained his balance. “But also, let’s go!”

Garcia noted the startled smile on Reid’s face and glanced back at the bar before she followed her friends. “Yeah, the bar closes at 11, let’s get cracking!”

* * *

**December 2009**

_Salem, OR_

Rain fell from the sky in icy needles. The mid-afternoon sky was gray and damp, the grass a dying green, the walkway up to the house crumbling with weeds. Inside, they could only assume, worse. The house belonged to a registered sex offender, a man convicted of statutory rape of his 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 18 years old. Now, a 14-year-old girl was missing, the third of her age and appearance since the beginning of the school term in September. The team theorized that the predator in question still had a predilection for high school freshmen.

“Morgan and JJ, take the front,” Emily said, adjusting her earpiece. “Rossi, Hale, go in through the side door. Detective Frazier and I will take the back.”

Eliza slipped her gun out of its holster, checking and the clip and the flashlight.

“Ready?” Rossi asked quietly.

Eliza nodded. “Yup.”

“I’ll go first. You got my back?”

“I do,” she answered calmly.

Eliza had been a good shot from the first, passing her firearms qualification with room to spare every six months for the two-and-a-half years she’d been at the FBI. Intellectually, she knew that shooting a target, even a moving one, was not comparable to shooting a living person. In five months with the BAU, she’d not yet had the opportunity to find out how it felt to fire a deadly weapon at another human being. She was fine with that but knew it wouldn’t last.

She had a bad feeling in her gut.

“Scientifically speaking, there’s no such thing as a physiological premonition,” Reid had told her once. She could hear his voice in her head, as if he were next to her and not sitting at the station, restricted by his injured leg. “It’s all neurological. Your brain is constantly comparing current experiences against stored knowledge and previous experiences and predicting what will come next. Your brain sends chemicals designed to induce a readiness to the current situation, based on previous cognitive models.”

Eliza breathed deeply as she waited for Detective Frazier’s voice in her ear.

“In three, two, one, go!”

Rossi jogged up the concrete steps leading to the side door, the landing only big enough for one person at a time. He glanced at Eliza, then pulled open the door and entered the house, leading with his weapon. Eliza followed a few feet behind, eyes flitting around the room and cataloging details. She silently checked the pantry door after Rossi crept by it, then returned her left hand to her weapon.

A loud crash emanated from the basement, whose door appeared to be in the hallway beyond the kitchen. The thumping of footsteps carried up the stairs. Rossi and Eliza positioned themselves to either side of the door, waiting for the inevitable. Eliza’s heart pounded in her throat. The door flew open, banging against the wall on Rossi’s side of the hallway.

The unsub stood in the door frame, a revolver in his hand, a look of frenzy in his eyes.

“Drop your weapon!” Rossi said forcefully.

The unsub’s eyes ticked back and forth between Rossi and Eliza.

“Drop it, now,” Eliza said calmly. Adrenaline coursed through her; she visualized harnessing it.

The unsub chuckled, a dark, rattling sound. “I’m not going back to prison,” he wheezed.

“You should have thought of that before you killed three girls,” Rossi said.

The unsub sneered. “You think she’s dead?”

Eliza clenched her jaw. Her shoulders ached with tension. “Where is the girl?”

“Oh, you’ll never find her,” the unsub said in an eerie sing-song voice. “Not without my help.”

As if on cue, Emily’s voice rose from the basement behind the unsub. “We’ve got her!”

In that moment, the unsub turned his gun towards Eliza, and she and Rossi both fired their weapons. The unsub fell backwards into the door, blood issuing from wounds in his shoulder and chest. The revolver dropped from his nicotine-stained fingers. Eliza bent down to grab the gun, dizzy. Footsteps in the hallway behind her brought Morgan and JJ.

“The rest of the house is clear,” JJ said. “What happened?”

“He pointed his gun at me,” Eliza said blankly. “I shot him.”

“We shot him.” Rossi pulled his hand away from the unsub’s neck. “He’s dead.”

Eliza nodded. “OK.”

Rossi looked up. “Are you OK, kiddo?” He narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah,” she breathed.

_No. I killed someone._

Her blood sparked in her veins, hot and cold at once. She felt as if she were sweating, but her mouth was dry. She could hear Reid’s voice through the roaring in her ears, warm with discordant enthusiasm. “Your brain is constantly updating its cognitive models based on lived experiences. When something unexpected happens - what neuroscientists call a ‘mismatch’ - your brain goes into overdrive, processing much faster than your conscious awareness, putting out chemicals that produce intense physiological reactions, like phantom pain and nausea.”

“Hale?”

She felt Morgan’s hand on her left shoulder, turning her towards him. Her arm burned. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Morgan countered, carefully taking her gun from her hand. “Come on. Rossi, you OK?” he said, glancing over at the older man.

“I’m good,” Rossi answered, waving him off. “Take care of her.”

“We need a medic!” JJ called.

Eliza followed Morgan dumbly through the living room and out the front door. Her stomach churned. Her limbs ached, her knees felt loose, as if her joints were floating.

_Phantom pain and nausea._

A paramedic met them at the bottom of the porch stairs. “Can you hold your left elbow with your right hand?” he asked.

Eliza complied, stumbling a step as her vision blurred. “My arm hurts.”

Morgan touched the small of her back, his palm flat and heavy. “I know, smart girl. Let’s go take care of it.”

Everything after that happened in a haze, Morgan watching over her as she sat in the back of the ambulance, a short ride to the emergency room, the pain in her left arm blooming and burning, then fading to numbness, sharp at the edges, the uncanny pull of stitches on torn flesh. Someone saying, “You’ll have a nice scar.”

Reid’s face when he met them at the station later, sickly pale and etched with worry.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliza struggles with the aftermath of killing an unsub. Reid is an idiot (falling) in love, and also an exemplary friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reid hijacked the first third of this chapter, but I felt it was important given the vignette-style progression of his relationship with Eliza thus far. Also, this bastard chapter was like pulling teeth.
> 
> Tumblr: codeandcreativity

_"Each relationship nurtures a strength or weakness within you." - Michael Murdock_

**December 2009**

_Salem, OR_

“Just stitches, pretty boy,” Morgan said over the phone. “She’ll be good as new in no time.”

“What the hell happened?” Reid asked, startling himself with his language.

“Unsub got cornered.” Morgan said stoically. “Things went downhill. Could have been a lot worse.”

 _It could have been worse_ , Reid said to himself.

Not surprisingly, that didn’t help.

“Everybody’s fine, Reid,” Morgan assured him.

“I hate not being out there with the team,” Reid admitted, tapping his cane a couple times against the floor.

Morgan chuckled. “I know. Look, man, she’s getting discharged. We’ll be headed back soon.”

Reid was well aware of the limitations of his social skills. He’d spent the length of his eidetic memory improving those skills he'd discovered were necessary to his academic and professional success. He was constantly in the process of building pathways to navigate around those social situations which were middling, common but not required. In 28 years, he’d nearly perfected the façade of blank confusion necessary to opt out of social interactions in which he simply did not want to partake. Only those closest to him could regularly discern the difference between that passive performance and authentic befuddlement.

It did not escape him that most of the people he interacted with regularly assumed that his distinct lack of social skills equaled a corresponding lack of emotional intelligence, an absence of empathy, an inability to sympathize. He used that misconception to his advantage when it suited him; it was invaluable in the context of casework. It allowed him to compartmentalize the bevy of emotions that came with constant pursuit of horrific predators, humans that defied humanity, begging to be labeled monsters.

The men and women who were closest to him, the ones he worked with, day in and day out, knew better. Reid knew they knew better, though he was not immune to insecurity in that respect. In truth, trust and respect were hard-earned in his regard. Love came stupidly easy to him, perhaps because it was so difficult for him to express his affections, rendering trust and respect that much more important. He loved and respected all the members of his team as he would a healthy family unit. In a professional context, he trusted every one of them absolutely. Personally, he trusted JJ and Penelope nearly completely. Morgan pushed him outside his comfort zone too often to have his full trust, though it was almost always in good fun. From time to time, he found it difficult to trust Emily or Rossi, simply because it was their job to protect the BAU. Regardless, he sensed he had Emily’s confidence in return.

Reid found it difficult to accurately evaluate his relationship to and with Eliza. She’d only been a part of the team for six months; they’d worked together for only five. He cared for her as he did the other agents he worked with, but he was beyond kidding himself that physical attraction wasn’t getting in the way of his ability to process how he felt. He trusted her professionally, though he acknowledged her relative lack of experience in the field. He certainly respected her, and truly enjoyed her ability to engage him intellectually on topics outside the guise of work. Given the breadth and depth of his own knowledge, that intellectual stimulation was difficult to find. As much as he considered Garcia one of his closest friends, neither of them were fluent enough in the expertise of the other to flesh out that aspect of their rich relationship.

At first, he wondered if Eliza was sliding into a space JJ had once occupied, someone whose company he enjoyed who simply didn’t have other social obligations. He’d felt the loss of JJ when she’d become a mother; she was no less available to him now in times of need than she had been before Will and Henry, but her priorities had necessarily shifted. There’d been a time where he found JJ physically attractive, but that, too, faded when he realized she was simply someone he felt he could be himself around. That acceptance was such a rare occurrence in his life to that point that he’d placed more shine on it than it had merited. That JJ was conventionally attractive was not beside the point; being the focus of those pretty blue eyes had, for a few weeks, effectively rendered his brain a tuber. If it hadn’t been for Gideon’s football tickets, Reid knew he might have pined longer, and missed out on a great friendship.

Eliza didn’t make his brain feel like a tuber. He would be absolutely comfortable in her company, and then in a moment of conversational lull, his brain would accelerate in a decidedly un-tuber like way, projecting a variety of exciting and terrifying scenarios as it tried to figure out why his skin tingled when she touched his arm and why the shape of her mouth made her words seem particularly apt and why he anticipated her morning salutation more than anyone else’s.

So, his perfectly human brain sent entirely unnecessary signals throughout his body to prepare his nerves and muscles to respond to a crisis, despite being equipped with the knowledge that the situation was well under control. Rossi and Emily were wrapping up the on-site paperwork. JJ was in contact with the pilots, instructing them to file a flight plan for their return to DC that evening. Now, Morgan and Eliza were walking into the bullpen.

She was paler than usual, but she held herself with her usual air of casual confidence. A sling held her left arm at a right angle close to her chest. Her FBI windbreaker was draped over her shoulders, and the wristband from the hospital was still secured around her right wrist. Some of her hair had escaped its braid.

“Hey,” Reid said, his mouth drawn. “Are you…”

“Please don’t ask me if I’m OK,” she said shortly, looking at her shoes.

Morgan stared at Eliza’s bent head in concern, then looked at Reid. “I’m going to check in with Emily and the others,” he said simply, then pushed through the doors to the conference room.

“Let’s sit,” Reid suggested, motioning towards a bench along the wall.

Eliza shook her head, her braid swishing across the fabric of her windbreaker. “Can we go outside?”

Reid opened his mouth to say, _It_ _’s 39 degrees and your nervous system is still recalibrating from a recent physical trauma_. But as he stared at the crown of her head, still bent towards the floor, he made an intuitive decision and said, “OK.”

They weren’t more than three steps past the front door when she turned to him. “I know you’re not a fan of prolonged physical contact,” she said, finally meeting his gaze with a self-deprecating smirk that even he could tell was moments from collapsing into something less controllable. “But I had a really bad day at work and I could use a hug.”

Reid nodded, shifting his weight to his good leg and holding out his left arm to pull her as close as he dared. “Of course,” he murmured into her hair. “Whatever you need.”

“Thank you.” She slid her good arm around his waist and buried her face in his chest.

He waited a few moments, cataloging her breathing and the slight sway of their embrace. “I was worried about you.”

“I’m OK, I promise,” she said. “I just… my brain won’t stop. Because I killed someone today and my brain doesn’t- doesn’t- doesn’t know what to do with that,” she finished on a sob. “Fuck.” She pulled away from him, her shoulders caving as she swiped angrily at her tears with her free hand. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want to do this here.”

Reid glanced over his shoulder, then shifted so he was between Eliza and the station door, shielding them from potential observers. “Do what?”

“Fall apart,” she whispered, holding her right arm across her abdomen as if she were nauseated. “I don’t want them to see.”

“The team?”

“I don’t want them to think I can’t handle… this.” She turned away from him. “Get it together, Elizabeth.”

Reid recoiled at the vitriol in her voice as she said her own name. After a moment, he touched her shoulder. “Turn around. Look at me.” When she complied, her eyes rimmed pink and shadows across her face that had nothing to do with the lighting, he said, “Now stop.” Her breath hitched. “Just stop. Just for now.”

Gray blue eyes met his, wavering. “For now,” she repeated quietly.

“You can do that.”

“I can do that.”

Reid watched her steady her breath. “Listen to me and don’t respond. Just keep breathing.” She nodded and he continued, “No one on this team will think any less of you for how you respond to this situation. No one will judge you, coddle you, or punish you. What they will do is support you. They will offer advice. They will do their best to understand your feelings and help you in your process. Because we have been where you are right now. We know it’s complicated and terrifying and painful. And we know it’s a formative experience.”

“Can I talk now?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said sheepishly.

“Thank you, Spencer.”

She held out her hand, and Reid responded by pulling her close again. He loved her the way he loved the rest of the team, he knew. He’d offer any of them this level of support, no matter how physically uncomfortable it made him. But holding her didn’t feel uncomfortable. A little awkward, but at the same time, pleasant. He wanted the best for all of them, and felt joy at their happiness.

But in his evolving affection for Eliza, there was something more. He didn’t want to just support her while she regained her balance; he wanted to help her find her feet. He didn’t want her to feel unburdened when she confided in him; he wanted to actively lift her burdens. He didn’t just want to feel vicarious pleasure when she smiled; he wanted to make her smile. He didn’t want to simply support her; he wanted to take care of her.

Right now, he’d have to settle for trying to ease her mind, and hoping he could.

“You’re shivering,” he said, rubbing her back lightly. “We should go in.”

* * *

Shadows draped the length of the jet's interior. Morgan lay on his back on the couch, muscled arms crossed over his chest, headphones on, eyes closed. Rossi and Emily sat across from one another at the other end of the plane, sipping something rich and dark from heavy glasses and talking quietly. JJ had wrapped herself in one of the jet’s blue blankets and curled into a window seat at the four-top, dozing lightly. Eliza sat across from her, eyes closed.

Reid made his way down the aisle from the galley, a bottle of water in one hand and the plane’s first aid kit in the other. “Can I sit?” he asked softly. Eliza opened her eyes a crack and nodded, accepting the water bottle he offered. He folded himself into the seat, careful not to touch her. Her bad arm was in a sling on the window side of her seat, but he didn’t want to jostle her unnecessarily.

“How’s it feeling?”

“The arm or the other thing?” she griped.

Reid ducked his head, a smirk at the corner of his mouth. “The arm.”

“It aches,” she said, wincing. Her left shoulder was stiff, and she’d unconsciously tried to roll it to relieve the tension. “The numbness from the local is starting to wear off. It could have been worse.”

 _You_ ’ _ll have a nice scar._

Reid nodded, fiddling with the med kit. He unzipped the nylon case and folded it open. She watched his long fingers dance across the contents, eventually selecting a small pair of scissors. “Give me your hand,” he said.

She complied, watching as he cradled her right hand loosely in his left while he snipped the medical bracelet from the emergency room off her wrist. She took her hand back and shook it out. “Thanks. That was driving me nuts.”

Reid busied himself again with the kit. He pulled out an instant cold compress, his face alight with victory for just a moment before he spilled half the kit across the four-top. “Oh, crap.”

JJ opened her eyes a crack. “Need back up, Spence?” she smirked.

“No, no, I’ve got it,” he huffed, grabbing a roll of bandage tape just before it rolled off the table into JJ’s lap.

“OK,” JJ chuckled, then closed her eyes again.

Eliza felt her lips twitch in the beginning of a smile. She let the lightness of the exchange flow and ebb without trying to hold onto it.

Corralling the remaining rogue medical supplies, Reid turned back to her. “This’ll help with the pain and the swelling,” he offered, holding up the cold compress. “Did they give you anything for the pain?” he asked, titling his head.

“I took some ibuprofen,” she said dismissively. “Ice pack would be great.”

Reid cracked the cold compress and manipulated the contents with his fingers, feeling the gel begin to cool almost instantly. He wrapped it in a paper towel from the galley and handed it to her. She held the pack in her right hand and applied it to her left arm, careful not to put pressure on the fresh stitches. The bullet had only nicked her arm, grazing a groove a quarter of an inch deep across her bicep, but she had seven stitches that didn’t feel so lucky. Her good arm trembled, her entire body tight with exhaustion. “Can I…” Reid asked quietly, holding his hand out.

Eliza nodded, watching as he slid the cold compress between the top fabric of the sling and her arm. She barely felt his hands, his fingers brushing her arm gently. “Is that OK?” he asked at last, glancing up at her drawn face.

“It’s good.” She sighed. “I just wish I could get some sleep.”

_I killed someone. I may never sleep again._

“I’ll get you a blanket.”

“Stop fussing,” Eliza said. “Just sit here with me.”

“Sorry,” he murmured.

Eliza tipped her head onto his shoulder and breathed out a heavy sigh. It would be at least six hours before she could expect to reach the sanctity of her one-bedroom apartment, before she could truly expect to be alone. Though she was prepared to argue, she knew there was no way Rossi would let her drive herself home once they got back to DC, and it would be too late to take the train. The tension in her body would only be relieved by a proper cry, preferably in the shower, though the stitches might prevent even that. Crying in the shower was a legitimate processing mechanism, as far as she was concerned; crying in a bathtub was just depressing.

“You’ll be playing one-handed for a couple days.”

Eliza found her eyes had fallen closed. She opened them at the sound of Reid’s voice, her vision blurred as her dried out contacts struggled to compensate. “Huh?” she mumbled without lifting her head.

“Piano. Though I imagine you’ll have full range of motion back fairly quickly.” Reid dropped his left hand to his knee, palm up.

“I never told you I play,” she said quietly, considering his invitation.

Reid cleared his throat, embarrassed. “You, uh… you mimic playing with your right hand sometimes… when you’re thinking. It’s too practiced to be a random phalangeal tic.” At her silence, he continued, “You were doing it just now.”

_Are you always watching me?_

Eliza let her eyes drift out of focus. As nice as the attention was, she knew Reid was just trying to comfort her, to make himself available in a way he thought she needed. He was unexpectedly correct in his assumptions - _studied conclusions?_ \- but her brain was too busy recalibrating from the day’s events to process his gentle scrutiny appropriately. She had told him she needed physical reassurance; he was providing it. It was that simple.

_I killed someone today._

It had to be.

“Debussy’s _R_ _êverie_ ,” she mumbled finally. “It makes me feel quiet.”

“You can still play the melody,” he offered.

“That’s not the quiet part,” she murmured, staring half-blindly at his hand where it lay open on his knee. She touched her fingertips to his palm tentatively; his fingers curled reflexively, then relaxed. She played the first few two bars of the melody on his palm, then pressed hers flat against it, sliding the tips of her fingers between his.

 _The arpeggios are the quiet part_.

“OK.” His voice was nearer her ear than before, softer. Calm.

She wondered if she’d said the _arpeggio_ bit out loud and couldn’t remember. Exhaustion brought tears to the surface unbidden. She felt one fall and turned her face further into his shoulder.

Reid curled his fingers, taking proper hold of her hand beneath the table. “Close your eyes,” he instructed, his thumb tracking a gentle path across the back of her hand. “Did you know Debussy composed two unfinished operas based on short stories by Edgar Allen Poe?” he asked.

“ _Le diable dans le beffroi_ ,” Eliza said sleepily. She felt warm, safe, and tired, tears drying hidden on her cheeks. She yawned. “And _La chute de la maison Usher_.” She squeezed his hand, a silent message to continue. He evidently received it as such, adding:

“Debussy said he wanted to ‘put an end to the idea that the devil is a spirit of evil,’ describing the devil rather as a ‘simply the spirit of contradiction,’” he said, his typical level of academic excitement hushed by the white noise of the jet and the presence of so many sleepers. “He never intended the devil to speak or sing, only whistle!”

Eliza could hear the smile in his voice, the cautious one that graced his lips when he was intellectually satisfied but aware that he was splashing happily about in esoteric territory. She imagined instead a real Spencer Reid smile, the big one with the bright eyes and the nice teeth and absolutely no apprehension. The breathtaking one that made her forget herself for a second. That was her favorite.

She slept, and dreamt of his hands dancing across the keys of an unseen piano.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a long December... some fluff, some angst, relationship-building, little in the way of actual plot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Episode references (do the timewarp!): 4.03 Minimal Loss; 4.17 Demonology; 4.24 Amplification; 4.26 ...and Back; 6.14 Sense Memory; & 11.01 The Job. Additional references to "Solaris (1972)."
> 
> Thanks to SSA_SarahSunshine for the partial beta. All mistakes are mine.
> 
> Tumblr: codeandcreativity

_“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.” -Aristotle_

**December 2009**

Rooms tell stories. Dr. Tara Lewis’s office was the same wall color as most of the offices at Quantico, a shade of yellowish cream that probably had a kitschy name like “cracked wheat” or “stable hay.” The desk and bookshelves were a dark cherry red, the desk chair a standard issue tall-backed black desk chair. The grey sitting chair was most likely standard issue, but the olive-and-gray hounds tooth couch spoke to Dr. Lewis’s personality more than FBI ambiance.

A pair of file boxes sat seemingly untouched on the floor by the desk, but a moving box on top of the desk had begun to supply the office with a few hints of personality. On the wall above the filing cabinet was a framed shadowbox with a pair of tickets to a San Francisco Giants game, along with an official game-day program, with a trio of autographs adorning the cover. Eliza couldn’t discern more than that from her seat on the couch.

A doctoral diploma in Psychology from UC Berkeley had a place of prominence on the wall behind the desk, along with an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth. The bookshelf was well-populated, with Rossi’s full bibliography, a dozen or so books on psychology, the current DSM, and - surprisingly - a handful of philosophy books which appeared to be published in the original German.

Lewis herself was a tall black woman with correct-but-casual posture, short styled hair, and concentration of her face. “Sorry, I just moved in yesterday,” she apologized. “I don’t know where half my belongings are. And your file is” - she held up a file about a half-inch thick - “here we go.”

Eliza offered a tentative smile. “It’s OK.”

Lewis sat, crossing one leg over the other, with the folder and a leather portfolio on her lap, the picture of professionalism. Eliza, on the other hand, sat unnaturally straight on the edge of the couch, feet flat on the floor and hands on her knees.

“You look like the kind of person who won’t mind if I sit more comfortably,” Lewis offered with a kind smile.

“Not at all.”

“Good.” Lewis kicked off her heels and folded her legs up beneath her in the chair.

Eliza watched, waited a moment, then slipped off her flats and pulled her feet up to sit cross-legged on the couch. She offered a half-smile, genuine but shy.

Lewis chuckled. “That’s better.”

“Agreed.” Eliza knew Lewis was trying to make her comfortable, and the sincerity of it was working. Still, they both knew why she was here, and the seriousness of it.

A pen held between her index and middle fingers, Lewis laid her hand flat on the file folder in her lap. “So, first off, I’ve spent six years interviewing serial killers and violent criminals in their prison cells across the country, and I made them address me as Dr. Lewis. So, now that I’ve changed track to support the agents who catch those criminals, I’m Tara to my colleagues. So please, call me Tara.”

“Only if I’m Eliza.”

“You’ve got it, Eliza. Second, I haven’t looked at this file. I did a couple field evals in San Francisco, and I don’t like to look at the file before I talk to the agent. I want to hear how you remember events before I look at the official report. I’m here to determine, in my judgment, whether you are fit to carry your weapon again. I am not here to judge your actions or your process.”

Eliza nodded. “OK. That sounds… a lot fairer than what I anticipated.”

Tara grinned. “Good. This should feel - and be - fair. We both want to get you back to full capacity as soon as it's safe for everyone involved. Maybe that day was the day after you discharged your weapon. Maybe it’s next week. But the eval is mandated to be here, at the seven day mark, so let’s get into it.”

Eliza described the investigation insofar as it was relevant to search; what the unsub was suspected of having done, the teenage victim who had been missing for two days; their relevant assurance of finding the unsub in the dwelling for which they had a warrant. She described the unsub opening the door from the basement. She described how she stepped away from Rossi so that they stood on either side of the unsub. She described the weapon, an older revolver. She described the nicotine stained fingers, the unsub’s declaration of his intended end game, and motion of his arm as it rose in a straight line, the barrel of the revolver aimed at her chest.

“He fired. I fired back, as did SSA Rossi. The report indicated that the bullet I fired hit the unsub high in the upper right quadrant, while the bullet Rossi fired struck the back of the unsub’s right shoulder as the latter turned his body towards me,” Eliza finished. She shrugged with one arm. “That’s what I recall.”

“What was the unsub’s name?” Tara asked after a beat.

Eliza shook her head a little. “Keith McCarthy.”

“You called him ‘the unsub’ exclusively,” Tara pointed out.

Eliza breathed deeply, her shoulders curving downward slightly. “I know. It’s easier to label the men and women we pursue. It’s… hard to accept, sometimes, that they’re human. That we are the same species.”

“Do you think that contradiction had an impact on your decision to fire your weapon?” Tara asked.

After pausing to consider, Eliza answered, “No, I don’t believe so. I did not enter the house with the intention of firing my weapon.”

“Do you think Mr. McCarthy deserved to die?”

“No,” Eliza said immediately. “That’s not the job. The job is to catch the bad guys and to save the victims. After that, what happens to any unsub - in this case, McCarthy - is up to the judicial system.” She offered another one-armed shrug. “I’m honestly glad that part isn’t up to me.”

Tara nodded thoughtfully. “How about how you felt when you realized you’d been shot?”

Eliza took another deep breath. “I didn’t… realize it at the time?” she said, nonplussed. “I guess I knew I’d been injured when SSA Morgan escorted me out of the house, but I didn’t realize I’d been shot until I was in the ambulance. That’s odd, right?”

It was Tara’s turn to shrug. “Not really. Everyone reacts differently to dangerous situations. Your body produces adrenaline in huge quantities so that you have the strength of body and mind to remove yourself from the situation. Some people experience that rush of adrenaline as memory loss or as a lack of awareness of the sensation of panic.”

“OK. That’s… OK.”

Tara switched lanes. “So tell me about the past week. Have you had any increased sensitivity to loud or sudden noises?”

“No.”

“What about light?”

“No.”

“How have you been sleeping?” Tara asked.

Eliza smirked. “OK, I guess. I usually sleep on my left side, but there are seven stitches in my upper arm, so I’ve had to adapt. I’ve had two nightmares, neither one of them resulting in a different or more severe outcome.”

Tara nodded. “How did you feel when you woke up?”

Eliza was silent for a few moments, thinking. “Alone.” She looked up. “Not frightened. Just alone.”

“What do you do when you wake up feeling alone?”

“In the middle of the night? Nothing. Sometimes it takes a little while to get back to sleep, but I always do.”

“Do you feel you’re ready to carry your weapon again?”

“Yes,” Eliza answered honestly.

“OK.” Tara patted the report in her lap. “I’m going to take a look through the case reports. I’ll get you and SSA Prentiss an answer today or tomorrow.”

“Any hints?” Eliza asked sheepishly.

Tara chuckled again. “Nope. You’ll hear from me soon, I promise.” She stood and held out her hand; Eliza followed suit and took it. “It was nice to talk with you, Eliza.”

Eliza smiled then. She liked Tara, even though the psychologist guarded the gate that Eliza most wished to cross through at the moment.

“It was nice to meet you, too,” she said, shaking Tara’s hand. “Really.”

* * *

Bach’s _Ich ruf zu dir_ accompanied the slow scroll of white Cyrillic characters on a black screen. Weak light from the television cast shadows throughout the living room. The haunting ambiance enhanced the dysphoria that crashed over him at the end of the film like waves rushing a beach, fluid forces of nature he could see coming, but which flooded the shores of his mind with an astonishing impact regardless.

Reid projected a vision of himself in April: before the surgeries, before Canada, before the anthrax scare… before Hotch. He pictured Emily in February, before the demons of her teenage years came rushing out of her past like hell unleashed. In October of last year, before Colorado, he and Emily with the team going over contingencies that somehow did not include a scenario in which only one of them was outed as a Federal agent while locked inside a cult compound. Before Emily had fallen so gracefully on her sword for them, before he’d had to come to terms with the fact that she had been absolutely right to sacrifice herself and preserve him. Reid could certainly think on his feet, but Emily’s years at Interpol had trained her to act. She’d put Reid in a position to establish a relationship with Cyrus, and put herself in a position to signal for help. She’d used her body not just as a shield, but as a resource.

“Have I changed too much?” Emily asked from where she sat with her feet curled under her next to him on the couch.

Apparently, he had not been the only one lost to thoughts of previous iterations of self. “What do you mean?” he asked, turning to look at her.

Emily kept her eyes on the screen as the credits ended and the DVD returned to the main titles, Bach resurgent.

Reid watched the light play over his friend’s sharp features. “I don’t think you’ve changed.”

Emily shook her head. Reid was a terrible liar with a good heart. “I have.”

A bubble of silence inside the music stretched between them.

Finally, Reid said, “You’re the only one who really had to.”

Her face threatened to crumple, and she smiled tightly into the empty space in front of her. “I didn’t necessarily want to be in charge, you know?” She turned to face him in the middling dark. “I spent so much of my life around politics. I just wanted to do the work. But when it came down to it…” She frowned. “I couldn’t let them take it all away. So I told Strauss I wanted the job.” She heaved a sigh. “Guess I’ve been sitting on this a while, huh?”

“Give or take 166 minutes,” he said, glancing at the screen.

Emily smirked, her face fixed in a sour expression of self-deprecation. “How is it, Dr. Reid, that you’re the one who got away from me?”

Reid frowned, actually puzzled this time as he repeated, “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Spencer,” Emily scoffed. “We used to talk.”

“We’re talking now.”

“We used to confide in one another,” Emily said pointedly. “I miss you.”

Reid glanced at the screen. He knew he’d pulled back after Hotch died. Each of them had reacted differently to the loss and the changing of the guard. He hadn’t been present to witness most of it, but he knew what each of them had brought to his doorstep in their frequent visits. Garcia, her grief close to the surface, her energy high as she tried to not to drown in it. JJ, stoic and close, with a cold mask of professionalism that faded as the weeks passed. Morgan, his anger radiating off him in barely controlled bursts. Rossi, transitioning into his new role as team patriarch, fumbling and earnest. And Emily, her salacious smiles on sabbatical, carrying them all.

“I’m right here.” Reid heard the confusion in his voice, and it sounded like weakness.

Emily narrowed her eyes at him. “Can we lift the moratorium on interteam profiling for a minute?” she asked.

Reid swallowed with some difficulty. “Sure.”

“I think you didn’t get to grieve Hotch with the rest of the team,” she said. “We saw each other almost every day as we processed his death, while you recovered at home.” She cocked her head when Reid flinched slightly at the word _death_. “When you came back, we had all gotten into the rhythm of the new team dynamic. New roles, new people. You felt like you were playing catch up, but you didn’t admit it to anyone, except, I’m guessing, Penelope.”

Reid opened his mouth to protest, but Emily forged on with an apologetic smile. “She didn’t tell me anything, but you just did. That woman is the personification of chaotic good and were stuck in the office with her for a week.”

“Emily,” Reid interjected. “I…” He bent his head, pressing a knuckle to the bridge of his nose. He felt a headache coming on.

“Migraine?”

 _Case in point_ , he thought.

Without turning on the lights, Emily stood and crossed to the kitchen. She filled a pair of glasses with water and returned to her seat, handing him one. “Room temp.”

“Thanks.” Reid stared down at the glass for a few seconds, then looked back up at her. “You used to sit across from me and treat me like a social equal. Like a friend.” His mouth quirked in a flicker of an embarrassed smile. “I wish I could talk to you the way we used to, but I don’t want to put you in an awkward position. I feel like I could tell you anything, trust you with anything…”

“You can.”

Reid switched tact, frustrated with himself. “If I’d told Hotch some of the things I’ve told you, he’d have had to ground me. I’m sure he knew everything there was to know,” he admitted, “but if we never spoke of it it, if he didn’t have proof, there was no liability to the BAU.”

“I am not Hotch, and you are not a liability,” Emily said firmly.

“But it’s your primary job to protect the BAU now,” he argued. “I’m not going to say I was trying to make it easier by pulling back, but the thought did occur to me.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Dr. Reid.”

He scanned her face, trying to read the emotional signals she was transmitting. “Are you laughing at me?”

Emily rolled her eyes. “No. Yes. A little.” She set her glass on the coffee table and leaned towards him. “There’s no BAU to protect without you. Without Rossi, Morgan, JJ, Garcia, or Hale. We _are_ the BAU. Of course I’m not going to let you hurt yourself or the team,” she said gently. “But that’s why your confidence is so important to me. We’re all dealing with our own shit. Constantly. And I trust you. But it’s a lot easier to trust you when we’re talking the way we used to.” She leaned her elbow on the back of the couch, considering him. “Like friends.”

Reid ducked his head, letting his vision blur as he stared at the oriental carpet beneath his feet. “I was thinking about Colorado. Right before we went into the compound. Morgan was teasing me.”

Emily nodded. “He asked if you were scared.”

Reid smiled at the memory. “I knew he was just trying to encourage me. But I didn’t need it. The sense of duty was… strangely comforting? We were going to go in there and save that girl.” He laughed darkly. “We barely saved ourselves.”

They weighed the following silence between them. “That was a bad couple of days,” Emily said finally, her voice less confident than it had been. She seemed lost in thought for a long time before adding, her voice slow and heavy, “But, you know, I didn’t once worry whether you understood what needed to be done? I worried about communicating with the team outside. I worried I might do something to get you hurt, or worse. But I didn’t for a moment worry about how you’d perform. I trusted you, because I knew you.” She touched his hand where it rested on his knee. “I trust you because I know you. That part has not and never will change.”

Reid released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He blinked rapidly, thankful that Emily was precisely the type to pretend not to know he was on the verge of tears. He searched the database of his mind for the appropriate response, preferably a professional or at least intellectual one, but all he found was, “Thank you.”

* * *

Eliza stared at herself in the mirror of her bathroom. A wave of insecurity was washing over her, targeting the minutiae of her appearance that plagued her from time to time. On top of that, she was judging herself for caring about said appearance and entertaining the feeling of insecurity in the first place.

Some years ago, she’d come to terms with her freckles, and even began to like them. But some days - like today - they were just distracting dots on her face. Her brown hair was barely a shade warmer than mousy brown, with just enough curl to be awkward. Her chin was too pointy, her nose and lips too narrow, her eyes a boring gray blue. She smiled, and liked that version of herself better; she had nice teeth, at least.

JJ knocked on the bathroom door. “Stop picking yourself apart and show me!” she called astutely.

Eliza smiled at herself again in the mirror, tried to see herself the way she knew her friends saw her, as a whole person and not an awkward construction of her features. This level of self-deprecation took time to exercise, and to recover from. A part of her was glad JJ was here to drag her out of it. Another part of her wanted to crawl back into bed and pretend she wasn’t home in half an hour when Rossi came to pick her up. She opened the bathroom door.

JJ wolf-whistled. “Very nice!” She diligently assessed the look, a navy crew neck pencil dress with loose half-sleeves and a knee-length skirt. Eliza had allowed JJ to do her face up “just a bit nicer than a work day,” and had to admit the other woman had done well at emulating Eliza’s style. “I still think the white one with the black embroidery would have been pretty,” she teased.

“Enough with the white one!” Eliza said, exasperated. “It’s sleeveless and my stitches don’t come out until Tuesday.”

JJ rolled her eyes. “You’d have looked like a badass.”

“I don’t now?” Eliza mocked. She twirled carefully on her two-inch heels, borrowed from JJ as a “necessary accessory” for a knee-length skirt. The Smithsonian and the lecture circuit had never cared about whether her legs “looked amazing in that dress,” but apparently JJ did.

“I think you look like an elegant, confident woman,” JJ said, immediately adding an inch to Eliza’s posture. “Now, earrings?”

“Oh, yeah.” Eliza ducked into the bathroom to grab the earrings, a pair of sterling silver pearl drop earrings from Tiffany’s that her father had gifted her when she earned her doctorate. She’d only worn them a handful of times, usually at the opening of a museum exhibit; they were too nice to wear during guest lectures, and definitely too rich for work.

“Perfect,” JJ said approvingly when Eliza emerged with the earrings in place. She walked around Eliza, examining her hair and tucking back a few flyaways. “Your hair looks so good done up.”

Eliza rolled her eyes. “It’s just hair,” she said, blushing. “All credit to you.” She groaned. “I really don’t want to do this.”

“It’s not that bad,” JJ soothed. “The Assistant Executive Director does this every Christmas. Leadership and fresh meat. I went when I joined the BAU. And this is Emily’s first time as unit chief. The two of you are going to walk in there and knock all those men to the floor.”

“Except Rossi,” Eliza laughed. “He’ll soak it up.

“True. At least you’ll have his company when Emily is inevitably drawn away by people who want to talk at her about how powerful they are. How’d you get him to agree to go, anyway?”

Eliza looked at JJ, deadpan. “I told him I’d fire him as my mentor if he made me go to a socio-political function on my own. I hate social events.”

“For someone who never wanted children, he sure enjoys having BAU kids,” JJ laughed.

“Of course he does,” Eliza said airily. “We’re mostly grown.” At JJ’s pointed look, Eliza added, “I mean, we’re out of diapers and we don’t ask him for money.”

“To meeting a low bar,” JJ said, lifting her wine glasses from the counter and raising it in a mock toast.

Eliza grabbed her glass. “To meeting a low bar,” she responded, then took a decidedly unladylike gulp of _moscato d_ _’asti_.

“OK,” JJ declared, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “Picture time!”

“What?” Eliza put down her glass and held her hand out in front of her face. “No! This isn’t prom, JJ!”

“You can fight me - and you will lose - or you can put your hand down and get your picture taken,” JJ said sternly. “I want to show Penelope.”

“Fine.” Eliza offered JJ a small smile and waited for the artificial click of the phone’s camera.

JJ tapped the screen. “I do such good work,” she said.

“Oh, shut up. Also, thank you. Seriously.”

“You’re welcome,” JJ said without looking up as she messaged the photo to Garcia.

Eliza’s phone chimed from the coffee table. As she lifted it, it chimed four more times. “JJ…”

“I copied you on the message,” JJ said dismissively, sipping her wine.

_Penelope Garcia: Absolute perfection, my little bird!_

_David Rossi: Bella! I'll_ _be there in a few minutes._

_Derek Morgan: Maneater!_

_Emily Prentiss: Please tell me you_ ' _ve been pre-gaming. I am not going to this thing sober._

Eliza all but growled at JJ. “You are an evil, evil woman, Jennifer Jareau.”

JJ shrugged. “I made a promise to Penelope. I didn’t want anyone to feel left out.” She smiled coyly. “Besides, look at all those compliments.”

“Emily’s talking about being wine drunk,” Eliza said flatly. Her phone chimed again.

_Spencer Reid: You look beautiful._

“Aw,” JJ crooned, reading the latest message in the group chat on her own phone. “Even Spence responded. Do you know what it takes to get Spence to participate in a group chat?”

Eliza wanted to crawl in a hole. She wasn’t immune to the urge to bury herself therein and suffocate. The compliments were pleasant and horrifying all at once. The last one had her face burning, all the more embarrassing because JJ clearly noticed the flush.

A knock on the front door heralded Rossi’s arrival. He was driving her to the party at her own insistence. Normally, Eliza wouldn’t have been quite so high maintenance about the whole thing, but she was cranky about having to attend the social event in the first place. There was a time and place for social grace, and that magical combination was an exhibit opening, not a quasi-political function at the exorbitant home of the AED. So, Rossi was driving.

“I can’t decide if I want to die or kill you,” Eliza said, gathering her purse and her coat.

JJ set her empty wine glass on the counter. She grabbed her own bag, then donned her shoes and jacket. “You can decide in the car,” she said helpfully.

Eliza sighed, then pulled JJ into a quick hug. “Will’s going to pick you up?”

“He and Henry are out front,” JJ said, returning the hug. “We’re going to grab some dinner and maybe visit Santa at the mall. Unless Henry falls asleep first.” She pulled back and crossed her fingers with an exaggerated grin.

“Please, take me with you,” Eliza whispered dramatically.

“Next year,” JJ assured her. She touched Eliza’s shoulder in sympathy. “I promise.”

* * *

Eliza sat on the end of her bed, breathing deeply as she tried to muster the energy to undress and prepare for bed. JJ’s heels slumped against one another by the bedroom door. She had the odd sensation of being trapped in her dress, which came with a slowly rising tide of irrational panic. She contorted her aching body until she was able to pull the zipper. She stood as she peeled herself out of the fabric and her stockings, then tossed both in the general direction of the sentry heels.

The bathroom light was harsh in the after-midnight hour. Eliza carefully removed her earrings, then revisited her face in the mirror. She felt like she’d aged 10 years over the course of the evening, smiling politely and shaking hands of men in rented tuxedos. They seemed, almost to the last, to consider the young women in attendance to be curiosities deserving of their most patronizing attention.

“You’re under 30 and you’re pretty,” Emily had said, her voice arid and borderline vicious as she sipped her wine. “But you’re here based on your intellectual merits, and it kills some of them to see it. The best thing to do in these situations, in my opinion, is to stand tall and twist the knife a little.”

Eliza smiled tiredly at the memory. She’d seen a level of feminist vigor from Emily tonight that had made the high heels quite a bit easier to tolerate.

In the mirror, a masked version of herself smiled back: her powdered eyelids tired, her skin dry, her lips chapped beneath the lipstick. After a moment’s deliberation, she began to carefully undo the facade. The elegant makeup came away on a series of disposable cloths, followed into the trash by her daily contacts. She brushed her teeth, then unwound the classy French twist JJ had labored over before slinging her hair back up in a messy bun atop her head. She made silly faces at herself in the mirror for a minute before flipping off the bathroom light.

In the shadows of the bedroom, she stripped out of her bra and thong and tossed them towards the ever growing pile of garments deserving better. She dug into her dresser for a pair of cotton panties that actually covered her butt and an oversized tee shirt, then crawled into bed. She lay awake, her mind buzzing uncomfortably after an evening of forced social interaction, the highlight of which had been her skillful introduction of Tara and Emily followed by a slightly clumsy but no less effective disappearing act.

“Now, what is it that you think you’re doing, _bellafina_?” Rossi had asked as she’d all but run into him after introducing the two women.

“Starting a friendship, I hope,” she’d responded gleefully.

Rossi had raised a brow, looking between her and the women across the room. “A friendship?”

“Maybe a fire,” Eliza had admitted, shrugging. “That’s Dr. Tara Lewis from HR. She’s new in town. She needs friends.”

“I see,” Rossi had drawled conspiratorially. “Is she the one that gave you your gun back?”

Eliza had shaken her head, earrings swinging. “No good deed goes unpunished,” she’d quipped, watching as Tara laughed at something Emily said. “I mean, look at those ball breakers.”

“All right, my little _amoretta_. Let’s go get you some water.”

“I’m not drunk, Rossi,” she’d said truthfully, but followed him away from the admittedly contrived setup regardless.

Hours later, Tara’s voice floated between Eliza’s ears as she stared at the wall next to the bed.

_How have you been sleeping?_

Eliza had lied a little bit about the sleeping. She wasn’t a fantastic sleeper on a good day, but she hadn’t wanted to give Tara the false impression than her trouble sleeping was disproportionally due to the incident in the field. Sometimes, she slept. Sometimes, she passed out. From time to time, she got through 24 or 48 hours entirely on the merits of several strong chai lattes.

_What do you you do when you wake up feeling alone?_

_I do this_ , she thought. _I stare at the wall and ponder whether it_ _’s gray or blue in the darkness and I embrace the fact that I am safe, with a lock on my door and a roof over my head and running water and food in my refrigerator. Eventually, by sleep or the dumb passage of hours, morning arrives and…_

 _Fuck it_.

Eliza flopped onto her side and grabbed her phone from the bedside table. It was just after one in the morning. She opened her messages and scrolled past Rossi’s _Here_ and the group thread from earlier to the third most recent contact. She tapped out a message before she could change her mind.

_Eliza Hale: Are you awake?_

She stared at the phone, willing a response, before remembering that his older device wouldn’t produce a read notification, much less indicate a message in progress. Closing her eyes, she tossed the phone screen down into the bedding beside her. “Stupid,” she chastised herself aloud. So overtired was she that the buzzing of the phone actually startled her. She picked it up and squinted hesitantly at the screen.

_Spencer Reid: Yes. Are you OK?_

The emptiness in her chest lightened a little and she smiled.

 _Eliza Hale: I'm_ _fine._

Just as easily as the reprieve had come, social anxiety and exhaustion punched a hole in her sternum again.

 _Eliza Hale: Sorry. It's_ _late. I shouldn’t have bothered you._

 _Spencer Reid: You're_ _not a bother._

She waited a minute, then tossed the phone to the side again. What was she doing, texting him this late because she was lonely? She’d become close with her BAU colleagues in the six months she’d worked with them, but it was still after one in the morning on a Saturday, and her state of mind was distinctly _not_ work related.

 _Fuck_.

The phone buzzed, then began to ring.

Eliza opened her eyes wide, blinking at the phone.

 _Double fuck_.

“Hello?” she whispered, immediately feeling like the most exceptional of idiots.

“Hi.” He breathed a nervous chuckle. “I’m terrible at texting. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

Eliza smiled gently, closing her eyes against the shadows of the room. “I’m fine. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry I called,” he said quickly. “You’d have called if you wanted to call but you texted but I didn’t…”

“It’s fine, Spence. I’m fine.” She paused to take a deep breath. “I’m glad you called. I didn’t realize how much I wanted to hear your voice.” Her eyes slammed closed.

_Triple fuck._

His nervousness was palpable through the phone, or maybe it was hers. There was a strange, overtired roiling in her stomach. “Then I’m glad I called,” he said finally. “Are you home?”

“Yeah,” she said, turning onto her side with the phone pressed to her ear. “I got home about an hour ago.”

“How was it?”

“Terrible,” she groaned. “There were so many _people_ and they weren’t _my_ people.”

He laughed softly. “I get it.”

She listened to him breathe for a couple seconds, imagining they were sitting together on the jet on the way back from a case. It was a strange thing to embrace, the desire to listen to someone else’s breath rising and falling. She felt a slow and unexpected wave of calm smooth over the edges of her exhaustion, a soft and heavy feeling like sleep.

“Eliza?”

“Hm?” she hummed.

“You should get some sleep,” he said gently. “Do you think you can?”

“Yeah,” she breathed. “Thanks, Spence.”

“For what?” She could hear his confused smile.

“For being you.”

His breath may have hitched; she was fading, and wouldn’t remember to question it in the morning. “Good night, Eliza.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crimes against children come in many forms. TW for violence against a child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Episode references: 2.02 Profiler, Profiled, 4.17 Demonology, 5.12 The Uncanny Valley, 13.20 All You Can Eat, & 14.05 The Tall Man
> 
> Tumblr: codeandcreativity

_“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” -Ursula K. Le Guin_

**January 2010**

The flight home from Atlantic City wasn’t a long one. Despite his fatigue, Reid tried to remain awake, sitting upright on the couch next to Morgan while the remainder of the team gathered around the four-top across the aisle. Reid’s exhaustion was two-fold, a weariness borne of both physical exertion and emotional stress. The former was ultimately a product of success: he’d been walking without a mobility aid for three consecutive days, his first time doing so in nearly seven months; the physical discomfort would fade eventually. The latter would never disappear: a gut-wrenching disgust at the way a parent could treat a child, an uncommon but recurrent violence against those least capable of defending themselves by those whose primary objective it was to protect them.

Biologically and sociologically, Dr. Malcolm was a monster. He’d violated and tortured his own daughter, ruined her for happiness, and made her into an unwitting monster herself. Reid only hoped the courts would see fit to place Samantha in the care of a doctor in a facility where she could live out her days in some semblance of peace, though he knew that system, too, was rife with abuses of power. Based on the statute of limitations and his own predilections, Dr. Malcolm’s punishment would be dependent on the voices of girls no older than 17, children whose emotional growth had already been irreparably hindered by the man they’d be asked to confront. Children whose parents, out of a desperate sense of self-preservation and safety for their children, would encourage them to bury their trauma rather than air it in a court of law.

Dr. Malcolm’s insinuation that he’d been a grieving father and a dedicated professional made Reid, for lack of a more apt description, heartsick. Reid had made a decision to spend his best years chasing the worst of humanity, and had become inured to some of the trauma-by-proxy. But crimes against children lingered like a wailing cry.

“Whatcha thinking about, pretty boy?”

Reid tucked his hair behind his ears, looking straight ahead at Rossi, Emily, JJ, and Eliza as they sat mostly quiet, lost in their distractions. Rossi, who had served himself a proper drink despite the brevity of the flight, appeared mired in thought. Emily’s eyes were half closed as she listened to music on her iPod through a pair of headphones. JJ tapped rapidly at her phone’s screen, smiling gently, probably texting Will. Eliza, who’d once told Reid she always brought something “safe” to read on the flight home, flipped slowly through a well-worn copy of _Sense and Sensibility_.

“Parents and children,” Reid said finally.

Morgan nodded, immediately latching onto his friend’s train of thought. “You know,” he began, taking in the repose-angled faces of their colleagues, “I never realized how many of us grew up in single-parent households.”

Reid raised his head, looking at Morgan thoughtfully. None of them knew Rossi’s childhood past in much detail, but the rest of them had chapters of their childhood stories laid open, at least to one another. Morgan’s father had been killed in front of him when he was nine years old, a tragic event whose repercussions had forced Morgan down a path towards further childhood trauma. Reid himself had suffered the loss of a parent at that age when his father took the coward’s way out and left him and his mother, who had been unstable and unwittingly abusive. Emily had never once mentioned her own father, and roguish tales of her childhood from her own lips indicated that her mother had been weak in the way of parental oversight. JJ’s father had left her and her mother when she was 12, unable to bear the loss of his eldest child to suicide the year before. Eliza’s mother had died when Eliza was only three months old, though she’d had the benefit of growing up with an appropriately attentive and nurturing father, as far as Reid had ascertained. Even Penelope, who had the benefit of two parents for the better part of her childhood, had suffered the traumatic loss of parental guidance when her mother and stepfather had died in a car accident when she was 18.

Without Rossi, the six remaining members of the team counted only five living parents, and not even one of them had been able to count on two parents throughout the entirety of their childhoods. The thought grieved Reid, but also offered a measure of relief. They had all experienced abandonment. They had all been afraid. They had all suffered, possessed of something less than social norms would dictate. But none of them had been irreparably broken. Not every bereaved parent became a monster. Not every bereft child was lost. He searched for the phrase Garcia had once used.

“Brave hearts,” Morgan said, as if reading his mind.

Reid allowed himself a small smile, cataloging once more the half-lit faces of his friends and colleagues.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Morgan added. “If I could go back in time, there’s a lot I’d change.” His face was drawn, but there was also a subtle glow to it. “But every one of us grew up to be a superhero. That’s not luck. That’s hard work.”

“I feel pretty lucky,” Reid said abashedly.

Morgan unleashed a megawatt grin and bumped Reid’s shoulder with his own. “Yeah, I guess this part feels pretty lucky.”

* * *

**March 2010**

How the fates had arranged for a proper lunch hour on her birthday, Eliza would never know, but she wasn’t going to look that loom in the spindle. Rossi had overcome his own predilections towards Italian cuisine to take her to the highest rated Japanese restaurant in Quantico, though he promised a “proper Italian meal” at his home at a later date to celebrate with the team. Afterward, she settled at her desk to tackle a week’s worth of paperwork, her stomach warm with winter miso and vegetable tempura. The shot of _shochu_ Rossi had insisted on had long worn off, a bitter but pleasant memory of familial camaraderie. A half-hour or so into the mind-numbing but procedurally necessary paperwork, her cell rang, a familiar but unexpected name on the screen.

_Incoming Call: Sarah Hughes_

Eliza lifted the phone to hear, speaking quietly as she anticipated an attempt at a quick escape.

“Hey, Sarah. Is everything OK?”

“We’re fine,” Sarah responded in her habitually sunny voice. “I’m sorry to disturb you during the workday. I was planning to have him call later.”

“It’s OK. What’s up?” Eliza asked, casting a quick glance around the bullpen. Across from her, Reid’s messy mop was bent over a book, the fore and middle fingers of his left hand trailing down the lines of text before he turned the pages with his right. Morgan sat at his desk, scribbling at a pile of paperwork. She hadn’t seen Rossi since he’d taken her to lunch, but his door was open. Emily was on a call in her office. JJ and Garcia were nowhere to be seen, though this was not unusual given the time of day and the lack of an active case.

Sarah’s voice changed tone. “I told him it was your birthday, and he couldn’t remember who you were,” she said sympathetically. “I showed him a bunch of the pictures he keeps of you in the apartment and explained that you are his daughter, but he’s getting agitated.”

“Oh. Hold on a minute. Let me get somewhere a little more private.” Eliza stood and quickly crossed the to the bullpen doors. She stepped out into the garishly lit hallway which, though far from empty at the mid-afternoon hour, was at least significantly less populated by people who knew or could contextualize her business.

“I’m sorry,” Sarah repeated.

“It’s OK, really,” Eliza assured her. She cast her glance down the hall in both directions before heading towards Garcia’s SCIF. She placed herself to the side of that door, facing the wall, as if blinding herself to the world around her would hide her. She bit her lip. “Does he want to talk?”

“Are you talking to the girl in the pictures?” came a familiar voice some distance from the receiver on the other end of the line.

“Yes, Dr. Hale,” Sarah called back. “He said you remind him of his wife, and he wants to talk to you.”

Eliza allowed herself a small smile even as tears sprung to her eyes. “OK.”

She heard Sarah talking reassuringly to her father, and then his rich, deep voice on the phone. “Hello?”

“Hi.”

“Is this this girl in the pictures?” he asked gruffly.

Eliza nodded, alone in the chill of the hallway. “Yes. I’m your daughter Elizabeth. That’s why I’m in your pictures.”

“Oh. Hm.” Eliza heard a shuffling of papers, Sarah speaking quietly, the clink of a water glass on a wooden surface. “The nurse here says it’s your birthday.”

“Yes, it’s my birthday,” Eliza said. She tried to focus on the imperfections in the paint of the wall in front of her in an effort to keep her emotions in check. Tears rose to her eyes regardless. She wrapped her free arm across her abdomen in an attempt to fortify herself.

“And how old are you?”

“Twenty-nine.”

Her father laughed. “Twenty-nine! Such a good age!”

Eliza smiled softly. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Twenty-nine,” he repeated wistfully. “I got married when I was twenty-nine. Are you married, Elizabeth?”

A tear slid down Eliza’s cheek. Her father had married her mother when he was twenty-nine. The information to which his brain had access from minute to minute would have been fascinating to her, if it hadn’t been so heartbreaking. “No, I’m not married.”

“I’m looking at this picture of you in- in- in-”

There was a pause while Sarah whispered in the background.

“Ah, yes, of course. It’s a picture of you in your doctoral gown. So, you’re smart. Smart and beautiful,” he said warmly. “So why aren’t you married?”

Eliza swiped at the tear, laughing under her breath. “Because I haven’t met the right person yet. A wise man once told me there was no point in rushing into the rest of my life.”

“Ah, yes, yes,” he said. “I am that man.”

“Yes, you are, _abba_ ,” Eliza said softly.

“My daughter used to call me that,” he said wistfully.

Sarah again, murmuring encouragement.

“Elizabeth,” he mused. “That’s my daughter’s name.” He paused. Eliza let the moment hang, concentrating as hard as she could on the words she hoped he’d say next, as if she could manifest them. “You’re my daughter, aren’t you?”

Eliza swallowed a sob and put her hand on the wall in front of her for support. “Yes, _abba_.”

“My Lilibet,” he said fondly. “Are you still at the Bureau?”

A wave of relief washed over her, a flush of warmth from head to toe. “I am. I’m actually at work now.”

“The villains never rest, do they? Not like in the stories.”

“Unfortunately not,” Eliza said. “No peace in the kingdom.”

“I always knew you’d grow up to slay dragons,” he said, and she felt the tears return. “I couldn’t be prouder than you managed to wield your mind as your weapon.”

“Thank you, _abba_. That means a lot.”

“I should let you work, then,” he said.

“I can talk for a few minutes,” Eliza protested, glancing back over her shoulder. She startled to see Reid standing in front of the elevator bay, conspicuously not looking at her.

“No, no. You go save the world. We can talk any time.”

“OK. You be nice to Sarah,” Eliza said with a hint of friendly warning. “You are a cantankerous old man, and she is very good to you.”

“Ach,” he grouched. “You sound like my daughter. She’s always on my case to be nice to Sarah, here, as if I don’t know how to behave at my age.”

The smile slipped off Eliza’s face and her heart jumped into her throat. “ _Abba_ …”

“You know, she works for the government, too,” he said eagerly. “Smart as a whip, you know, I’m sure you’d get along. Sarah can give you her number.”

Again, the susurration of whispers and papers.

“Oh, of course, of course.” In her mind, Eliza could see him waving away the nurse’s offer of assistance. “Sarah’s right. You can probably look her up on your own in the staff directory. Dr. Elizabeth Hale.”

Eliza swallowed thickly, her heart still lodged in her throat. “ _Abba_ , please.”

_Please remember me today._

Intellectually, she knew there was no significance to the timing of her father’s lapses. That he’d had so many good days in the past few weeks only to moonlight today had nothing to do with the fact that it was her birthday. But she was his child, his only living family, and she was hurt. And angry, helplessly angry, not at him but at the series of events, biological and faultless, unavoidable and irreversible, that led them here. Her father, not even 70 years old, his mind fading to the point where she’d hired him a full-time nurse and had recently moved him into an assisted living home. She herself, not even 30, with the weight of his disease bearing down on her, and unable to rely on him for the emotional and intellectual support that had buoyed her through a motherless life, the loneliness of high school and college, two bachelors’ degrees, a masters’, and a doctorate. And then, though he hadn’t known it and she wouldn’t tell him, he’d handed his role off to David Rossi, a man he’d never met and probably never would.

“Anyway, you must be very busy at the FBI. Such a kind young lady, to take time out of your day to speak with an old man like me. And on your birthday, too!”

“Anytime, Dr. Hale,” Eliza said, steeling herself as best she could. Her emotionality could only hurt her father’s state of mind when he was already agitated. On top of that, Sarah was listening, though the nurse did so with Eliza’s explicit blanket permission. “I love talking to you.” She longed to tell him she loved him, but knew it would only confuse him further. Over the past four years, she’d learned other ways to incorporate the word. She needed to say it, even if he didn’t always understand.

That sunny, supportive voice in the background again, urging him gently in the right direction.

“‘May you live all the days of your life,’” he added, quoting Jonathan Swift, as he had on every birthday she could remember. “Have the happiest of birthdays, my dear.”

“Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your day, Dr. Hale.”

There was another shuffling and her father grumbled something about the book he was reading before Sarah returned to the phone. “Hey, honey,” she said, a rare but deliberate slip out of her role as her father’s paid caretaker into the role that had earned her eternal gratitude and generous cash gifts throughout the years. “Are you all right?”

Eliza swiped at her cheeks. “I’m OK. I will be. I just need a few minutes.”

“Do you want me to stay on the line?”

“Oh, no,” Eliza said hurriedly. She cleared her throat, trying to stabilize her voice, if nothing else. “Go take care of him.”

“OK… remember, it’s not personal.”

“I know,” Eliza said, nodding to herself. “It’s the disease.” She looked back at Reid again. “I have to go, Sarah. Tell him I love him later if he’s OK to hear it.”

“Of course. Go slay some dragons.”

Eliza said her goodbyes and ended the call. She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders before turning away from the wall. She crossed her arms over her chest, shielding herself, even as she offered Reid a feeble smile, an invitation that he took.

Reid tilted his head in concern as he approached. “You’re crying.”

“Oh, shit.” Eliza swiped at her cheeks furiously. “I’m fine.”

Reid frowned, hesitating. “Was that your dad?”

Eliza lifted her eyes, searching his face for the pity she abhorred, but found none. “How much did you hear?”

He shook his head in confusion. “I didn’t hear anything. We caught a case, so I came to find you. I saw you out here and I waited.”

“You waited,” she repeated flatly.

Reid shrugged. “Yes?”

“How’d you know it was my dad?”

“It’s your birthday. The only friends I’ve ever heard you talk about are here.” He frowned again. “And you’re crying. So I deduced that you were talking to or about him. To him, I hope.”

Eliza wiped her eyes again with a watery smile. “Yes, I was talking to him.”

“Is he OK?” he asked, his long hair slipping from behind his ear as he watched her face. Without a moment’s hesitation, he reached out to wipe a stray tear from her cheek. He let his hand fall to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, squeezing reassuringly.

Eliza nodded, a little dumbly. “He’s fine. He’s just having a bad day.” She sighed. “They don’t make a lot of people like you, Spence, you know that?”

“I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but objectively, no, there aren’t a lot of people like me,” he said, bemused. He pulled his hand back suddenly. “Is that bad?”

“For the world, maybe. Come here.” She reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck. He moved into her immediately, locking his arms around her waist, one hand flat on the small of her back while the other rubbed soothing circles at the bottom of her rib cage. He bent to put his face where his hand had been, and she could feel his lips move against her skin as he spoke.

“You’re all right,” he murmured.

 _Safe_.

He was so comfortingly close, she realized this was the blind she’d been looking for, the shelter hiding her from the distractions and prying eyes of the world. “My mom used to say,” he began, his breath warm on her skin, “‘Love is a world of its own that lives in the heart, not the head.’” She tightened her arms around him instinctively.

 _Don_ ' _t let go. Not yet._

“Even when his mind fails him, he still loves you,” he murmured against her neck. “When he forgets, you have to remember that.”

“Wheels up in 15!” Rossi’s voice echoed down the hall, far enough to give them space but close enough Eliza knew they’d been seen. She flushed with embarrassment and untangled herself from Reid’s embrace.

“Child abduction,” Reid said by way of explanation, looking down at his feet for a moment. When he looked up, his face had changed, sympathetic but with a steely reserve. “Six hours.”

“Clock’s ticking,” Eliza said softly. To herself, she added, “Time to slay a dragon.”

As if he understood, Reid grabbed her hand briefly as they turned to walk down the hall. A quick squeeze of his fingers, repeating the message of solace that covered so many little cuts to give them time to start to heal: _You_ _’re all right._

 _I_ ’ _m here._

* * *

**April 2010**

_Chicago, IL_

Rossi held up his phone. “You’re on speaker, Penelope.”

Garcia’s voice filled the car, slightly tinny. “You’re all patched in. Katie Sullivan’s phone just pinged at a warehouse by the riverfront. I’m texting you the address.”

After a beat, Emily’s voice came through the speaker. “You guys are closer. We’ll loop in the locals and meet you there. Wait for us if you can.”

“Got it,” JJ said.

“Left on Division up here,” Reid said, leaning forward from the backseat.

“Be safe, my loves,” Garcia said. “Penny G out.”

Rossi glanced at his phone, then entered the coordinates of the warehouse into the car’s GPS system.

“We’ve got two kids in there,” Rossi reminded them. “And if the unsub finds Katie’s phone, she’s in immediate danger.”

“The kids are our priority,” JJ confirmed, eyes focused on the road as she navigated towards the address at a significant rate of speed over the limit. They were a few blocks away, lights on to alert the drivers around them but sirens silent to protect their approach. As they neared the warehouse a few minutes later, JJ flipped the lights off, headlights included. She parked close to an adjacent building, out of the line of sight of the warehouse’s main entrance.

“A warehouse this size has to have at least three other first floor exits,” Reid said as they donned their vests and checked their weapons. “There’s a fire escape from the second and third floors on this side. It’s probable that there’s at least one other emergency escape from the upper levels on the other side.”

“Locals will have the schematics,” Rossi, slipping in his earpiece.

As they prepared to wait for backup, three shots rang out from the warehouse.

“I guess we’re going in,” Rossi said as he jogged towards the front entrance. “Stay together,” he added, meeting the eye of each of the younger agents in turn to confirm that his words did not constitute a suggestion. “We get the kids out, then worry about the unsub. Understand?”

Reid and JJ both nodded, guns drawn as they took up positions on either side of the door.

Rossi went first into the echoing silence, the younger agents following at a practiced distance. A fourth shot rang out, following by the screaming sobs of a girl. “Katie! Katie!” the voice wailed.

Reid processed the input subconsciously: fourteen-year-old Katie had likely been discovered with her phone, while her twelve-year-old sister Laura screamed over the subsequent punishment. He glanced over at JJ and could tell they were thinking the same thing: Katie was already dead.

“FBI!” Rossi shouted as the trio approached the sound of the screams. “Jacob Georges, come out with your hands up!”

A barely human growl echoed around the room as together they skirted a pile of shipping cartons that towered above their heads. “It’s too late for Katie,” the unsub barked as they came cornered him. He clutched Laura back against his chest, his gun to her temple, his body hunched so he could effectively use the child as a shield. Katie lay motionless on the ground by his feet, blood pooling beneath her body and staining her blond hair.

Georges shook his head menacingly. “This is hardly fair, three against one.” Too fast for any of them to react, he raised his weapon and fired a single shot before returning it to the screaming child’s head. “Shut the fuck up.”

Rossi fell, his head connecting with the floor with a sickening crack.

“Put the gun down,” JJ said forcefully. Her steely eyes pinned the unsub even as she said, “Rossi?”

No response. Reid glanced over quickly. Rossi lay still with his eyes closed, one arm stretched out to the side. There wasn’t any visible blood, so Reid turned his attention back to the unsub.

“Reid,” JJ said.

He nodded. “We’re good,” he said, leveling his gun at the unsub’s head.

“OK. Laura, look at me,” JJ said. “I want you to keep your eyes on me, no matter what. Can you do that?”

Laura nodded meekly, and Georges pressed the gun harder against her temple. “Don’t listen to her,” he ordered. He turned his glare on JJ. “You look just like them. Little blond haired, blue eyed bitches,” he sneered. “You think you’re better than me, just because you have a gun?”

“I do,” JJ said without hesitation.

“Think you’re smarter than me, too, don’t you?”

“Undoubtedly,” Reid said levelly as he and JJ tried to calmly antagonize the unsub into aiming the weapon at them. If they could get him to point the gun away from the girl, if they could get him to waver even a second between them, they could take a shot.

“Smart won’t get you out of this one,” Georges laughed.

Reid’s blood froze in his veins as he realized what was happening. The unsub’s finger tightened on the trigger. JJ lunged forward, screaming, “No!” Neither of them had a shot. JJ would never be able to injure a child just to subdue an unsub. Reid simply wasn’t a good enough shot to risk it, even if he had time to make the calculations.

A fifth shot, a cannon boom reverberating against the concrete walls and the high ceilings. A death knoll.

Laura slumped. Reid fired as the unsub struggled with the sudden dead weight. The bullet was true, a textbook head shot, a split second too late. On autopilot, he followed JJ as she rushed towards the bodies. He pried the gun from the unsub’s lifeless hand and pressed his fingers against the man’s neck, confirming that he was gone. “He’s dead.”

JJ had fallen to her knees next to Laura, tears of agony and fury streaming down her face. She searched for a pulse, though it was obvious there was none. Reid approached Katie’s prone body to find a wound similar to one he had just dealt Georges, along with a trifecta of gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen. He looked for signs of life anyway before turning away to check on Rossi.

At some distance, he heard the door open and the sound of jogging footsteps. “Reid!” Morgan’s voice echoed off the rafters.

“Over here,” JJ called, joining Reid as he knelt beside Rossi, her hands covered in blood.

The older man groaned and raised a hand to his chest. Reid tore at his windbreaker to see a bullet lodged high in the Kevlar of the vest underneath. “It got the vest,” Reid said dully.

“We need a medic!” Morgan called.

Eliza glanced at the blood on JJ’s hands, then her stricken face. She gripped the blond’s right wrist loosely and relieved her of her weapon. “JJ, are you OK?”

“It’s not mine,” JJ said, her voice hollow.

“What the hell happened?” Emily asked sharply, surveying the scene, a bloody catastrophe of law enforcement failure and loss of life. “Is anyone alive?”

“We lost them,” Reid said listlessly. “We lost them all.”

“..m OK,” Rossi mumbled. “M’head hurts.”

“Stay down, Dave,” Emily said, bending down to place a hand on his shoulder. From her new vantage point, she looked Reid over, taking in his ashen face and shaking hands. “Where’s your gun, Reid?”

“I’ve got it,” Morgan answered.

“Take them outside,” Emily instructed, looking to Morgan and Eliza as a team of medics arrived to attend to Rossi. “Are there more of you outside?” she asked the nearest medic, who nodded. “I want them evaluated before we go back to the station.”

“Come on, Reid.” Morgan grabbed his upper arm gently, pulling him to his feet. “Let’s go get some air. Hale?”

“We’re coming,” she said, slipping her arm around JJ.

JJ scuffed a step, clutching at Eliza’s arm. “He shot her in front of us,” she sobbed. “We weren’t too late. He killed her in front of us. Their parents…”

“We lost them,” Reid repeated to no one, and he didn’t speak again for a long time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reid makes a mistake as he struggles in the aftermath of the events in Chicago.
> 
> TW: violence against children
> 
> Chapter episode references: 12.02 Sick Day (do the time warp)
> 
> Tumblr: codeandcreavitity

_"Love is a friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty in good times and bad. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weakness." -Ann Landers_

**April 2010**

An hour into the flight home, Eliza jolted awake, unaware that she'd dozed at all. The lights throughout the cabin were dimmed in deference to the hour. She blinked slowly as she reoriented herself. She was seated sideways on the couch, her feet curled under her and her elbow propped along the back, head in her hand as she watched over the sleeping form of the man who'd become her best friend. In the still dark and muted rumbling of the jet, it was no wonder she'd drifted off.

Eliza turned her head away from Reid, resting her chin on her shoulder as she looked around at her colleagues. At the other end of the cabin, JJ had curled herself into a window seat, one of the jet's navy fleece blankets wrapped tightly around her shoulders like a mantle. Emily sat across from her, not bothering to feign interest in the book open on the table between them. JJ had turned her pale face towards the featureless dark of the night sky, but the tension around her eyes revealed that she knew she was being watched.

There was an argument to be made that the majority of their cases ended badly. An elite team tasked with hunting down serial killers, they were often called in only after there were at least three victims, usually fatalities. In order to maintain some semblance of sanity, Eliza regularly found herself taking an academic approach to their work, as if she were working to protect potential victims based on a purely intellectual model. In short, while she never forgot that the profiles they built came at the cost of the victims they didn't save, it was more productive in the moment to concentrate on the outcomes the model foretold for the current victim. In that way, she knew, she took after Rossi and Emily in her ability to compartmentalize. Morgan and Reid let their biases get the better of them marginally more often, but JJ was different. JJ was a nurturer, and that meant fostering hope. She was as capable an agent as any of them, equipped with both the intelligence and the instincts required to do her job exceptionally well, but she wasn't as hard.

Though only an inch or so taller than JJ herself, Eliza had become familiar with the regular teasing about the other woman's size and disproportionate ferocity. She'd seen JJ put a man twice her size in his place with only her words. She'd seen her fight and laugh and cry and rejoice. But in her 10 months with the BAU, Eliza had never seen JJ so utterly defeated. She had never seemed so small.

"Everything OK, kiddo?"

Eliza startled. She turned to find Rossi watching her closely from his seat across the aisle from where she sat on the couch. "Of course. You?" she asked, nodding at the cold compress he held loosely in his hand. "You know that doesn't work if you don't put it on the part that hurts."

Rossi grumbled. "This works better," he said, taking a pointed sip of his drink.

Eliza rolled her eyes. "Fair enough," she admitted levelly.

"I'm all right," Rossi said, answering her unasked question. "Just a nasty bruise." He gestured at Reid. "What about the kid?"

Reid lay with his back to the aisle, hands curled beneath his head and breathing so carefully regulated that it was obvious he was awake and listening to their every word. His right leg was bent in the shape of sleep, but his previously injured left leg was extended almost fully, the toe of his shoe just touching Eliza's knee. Even if she'd been sure he slept, she wouldn't have spoken for him, and she certainly wouldn't so do now. Instead, she dropped her hand to his blue-and-white polka dotted ankle and answered Rossi's inquiry with a shrug of her shoulders and a contemplative frown.

Rossi nodded and took another healthy sip from his glass.

Eliza had meant what she'd said to Reid on her birthday: there simply weren't a lot of people like him in the world, and the world was worse off for the scarcity. Where JJ sought and nurtured hope, Reid's mind was a card catalog of science and theory, of fun facts and nightmares. But where JJ had her stake on the result of hope's inevitable timeline, the future, Reid had his on joy in its purest and simplest forms, the present. The smell of old books. _Doctor Who_ reruns with Garcia. Mismatched socks and purple scarves and physics magic.

JJ would go home, reconnect with her boys, and rebuild herself through her love for them. She'd see in her son the hope for the future that motivated her when dealing with the present dark, and she would follow that trail of love back to herself. Reid would rise again, too, holding on with childlike wonder to the little things that illuminated the halls of his spectacular mind with joy. But Reid had no Henry, no one who relied on him who could force him to begin. He would require permission from himself to feel any measure of relief, and Eliza knew with the certainty of experience that the first step down that road was the most difficult.

Every man and woman on the jet had an honorary doctorate in self flagellation.

Across the table from Rossi, Morgan removed his headphones. He leaned forward in his seat and craned his head around to assess Reid's reclining form. "You got him?" he asked.

She squeezed Reid's ankle gently, then removed her hand to her own knee. "I'll make sure he gets home safe," she said, watching Reid's face for a response. His features remained studiously unchanged.

* * *

Reid flipped the light switch, illuminating a series of lamps around the apartment's living area, and dropped his go bag to the side of the door. He hovered tiredly in the doorway, as if unsure of what to do next. Behind him, Eliza reached up to lay a comforting hand on the back of his shoulder. "Spence," she said gently. "Go on."

"Sorry," he murmured, stepping aside to allow her to enter his apartment.

Eliza dropped her bag next to his in the foyer and pulled the heavy door closed behind them. She turned the locks with two solid _thunks_ before she shrugged out of her jacket and hung it on the coat rack. She bent to unzip her low heeled boots, peeling them off and relishing the feel of the cool floor against the bottom of her stocking feet. "Spence?" She glanced up at him as she moved her boots out of the way of the door.

"Hm?" he mumbled absently. He blinked owlishly down at her, his fingers twitching at his sides.

"OK, let's get your shoes off," Eliza said after a moment. He'd been wearing loafers for the most part since he'd been shot, and these she removed and pushed to the side with her own discarded footwear. She gave the top of his left foot a reassuring squeeze as she stood. "Hey," she said, her voice overloud in the stifled silence of the room. She sought out eye contact, and he denied her. She frowned. "Spence…"

"You should go," he said flatly.

"What?"

Reid sidestepped with an exaggerated care, determined not to touch her as he ducked away from her prying eyes and unwarranted attention. He didn't want her compassion. He didn't deserve it. "Just go," he repeated. He dragged his hands through his hair as he crossed the room and collapsed onto the end of the couch, a dark brown leather piece that was both utilitarian and covered in a bevy of mismatched pillows in discordant earth tones. A fury had been building in him for nearly 12 hours now, a rage that was threatening to boil over now that he was secure in his own space. But Eliza was here. She had to leave before he lost control of himself, precipitating a disaster.

He needed her to go. He wanted her to stay.

Eliza worried her lower lip with her teeth as she watched him. She sighed a slow breath through her nose, arms crossed over her chest as she walked cautiously to the opposite end of the couch. She sat carefully, clasping a vaguely Moroccan inspired throw pillow to her chest. "It's late. Maybe I should stay?" she said gently, offering him a graceful way to keep her company. Her apartment was just 10 blocks from his, but it wasn't the physical distance that concerned her.

Reid's hands clenched into fists. "Eliza, I have never wanted to break something as badly as I do right now," he said, voice hoarse from lack of use. "Please."

It was more than he'd said aloud to anyone except Emily since the warehouse. She'd extracted a basic statement from him prior to their departure from Chicago, granting him the leeway afforded by his exceptional memory. The effort it took to speak so plainly to Eliza was staggering, and before he thought to warn her away again, the levee broke with a hitch and a sob.

"He killed her in front of me," he gasped, his upper body collapsing as he hunched over his knees. He saw it happening again, the twitch of the unsub's finger on the trigger, the child's eyes wide in fear as JJ lunged, the spray of blood in the air. He heard JJ scream, a merciless echo in his skull. He clamped his hands over his ears. "I didn't stop it," he keened, rocking slightly in place.

"Spence," Eliza said gently. She leaned towards him, but didn't dare touch him. He was too deep inside himself, too volatile in his grief to risk violating his personal space. "You couldn't have…"

"I _could_ have stopped it," he interrupted her angrily. "I could have and I didn't." He threaded his hands in his hair again and pulled, turning his head from side to side with something akin to growl.

Eliza bit her lip as she watched Reid struggle physically to contain his despair.

"I didn't stop it," he repeated. "He _shot_ a twelve-year-old girl in the head _ten feet in front of me_ and I didn't stop it!" He gasped as he dug his fingernails into his scalp. He struggled for air, his breaths coming shorter and shorter with each subsequent attempt. "It's my fault. It's my fault. It's my fault…"

"It's not," Eliza said, her voice compassionate but firm. She itched to touch him, to pull his hands from his head, to stop him from hurting himself. But he could barely stand the feel of his favorite sweater on his skin on an off day, and she didn't dare take the liberty of offering him the kind of physical comfort she'd have craved in his place. "You didn't…"

"A _child_ is _dead_ because of me," he panted.

"You did _not_ pull the trigger," Eliza said forcefully. She raised a hand as if to touch him, squeezed it into a fist, and dropped it uselessly to the pillow in her lap. "What happened to Laura and Katie is _not_ your fault. It is _not_ JJ's fault, or Rossi's fault," she added. "Intellectually, I know you know that…"

Her breath was knocked from her chest by the force with which Reid turned his body and threw his arms around her shoulders. Eliza reached up instinctively, arms sliding under his to grip the back of his shoulders as he collapsed heavily into her embrace, his lanky frame shaking uncontrollably. "Breathe, Spence," she murmured in his ear. "Please, just take a breath."

Reid sobbed into the curve of her shoulder, his hands clasped tightly behind her back. "I didn't stop it," he heaved. "I didn't…" He choked as he ran out of air.

"Shhh." Eliza slid one hand from his shoulder up to his neck, carding her hand through his hair as she cupped the base of his skull. "Come on, Spence. Breathe. In." She inhaled deeply, feeling his chest inflate with hers as she rubbed soothing circles on his scalp with her fingertips. "And out. That's one. We're going to do 10."

Reid's body continued to tremble as she led him through nine more breath cycles, rubbing gently at his scalp with one hand while gripping his shoulder tightly with the other. "What happened was not your fault," Eliza said eventually, her voice low. "I know that's not enough right now." She felt his sharp intake of breath against her neck. "Breathe," she reminded him, fingers moving comfortingly through his hair. "For now, you need to rest. And you can do that, because you're home. You're safe. And you're not alone. OK?"

As she touched him, with gentle hands and quiet words, Reid began to feel a deep exhaustion overcome him. He followed her lead, inhaling and exhaling past the choking pulse of his heart in his throat, focusing on the sensation of air finally reaching his panic-starved lungs. Unpleasantness lingered as his frayed nerves and overworked synapses struggled to make sense of themselves, his subconscious mind unable to accept that there was no mortal threat to the body it commanded. As the minutes stretched on, the air began to cool pleasantly against his flushed skin, and the adrenaline continued to fade into remnants of nausea deep in his gut. As Reid felt himself drifting, he instinctively clutched Eliza tighter to him, a buoy anchored in a roiling sea.

"OK, Spence?" Her voice came at him as if through water.

He lifted his head slowly, dizzy. "OK."

In the shadows of the apartment, cast by the dim glow of the light by the door, he turned his head to find Eliza watching him, her eyes shining with attentive concern, and another instinct occurred to him. He loosened his arms from around her waist and raised a hand to her cheek, swiping at a tear he found there with his thumb. Had she been crying? For him? With him? Because of him?

Of course she had. She was good.

Reid brought his other hand up to rest against the side of her neck, fingers curling against her skin as he lowered his face to hers. Because she was good.

Eliza felt his lips brush her cheek and recoiled. She planted her hands against his shoulders and pushed hard. "No."

He blanched, pulling back as if she'd burned him. "I'm so sorry," he rushed as he stumbled backwards off the couch, hands raised in surrender. The sharp scorching sensation yielded almost immediately to piercing shock, a cold so painful it felt electric. "I shouldn't… Eliza, I'm so sorry."

"Don't," she admonished bitterly, fixing him with a stony glare. Those eyes, which had been so soft and open a moment ago, were now hard with disbelief.

Reid carded his hands through his hair, tugging in agitation. In an instant of thoughtlessness, all the worst sensations from the last hour returned full force. "I'm sorry." He met her horrified eyes with a heartbreaking sincerity in his own. "I'm so sorry."

"Just don't." Eliza pressed her lips together so tightly they paled to match her stricken face.

He turned away then, his shoulders hunched in a sob, muttering to himself. "Fuck. Fuck. Damn it!" he yelled, his voice a thunderclap in the heavy silence. He yanked again at his hair with both hands, then cleared a stack of books from his dining room table with one violent swing of his arms.

Eliza jumped up from the couch, putting the furniture between herself and his self-destructive anger. She itched to touch him again - to comfort him, to strike him - to make him feel the rawness of her frustration. She wanted to suffocate under his mouth and bloody his nose, both urges so foreign to her that she actually feared what might happen next, if just for a moment. She took a staggered breath.

_Was this what you meant when you said you wanted to break something? How far in advance did that massive processing center you call a brain project this utterly idiotic outcome?_

She tried valiantly to give him the benefit of the doubt. Surely, his conscious mind was lagging. There was no scenario in which he would ever consciously try to take more than she offered. Oh, but she was angry, and exhausted, and hurt.

"Spence," she said quietly.

Reid spun around, his fingers pressed to his mouth. He dropped his hands to his sides, dejected. "I'm so sorry."

"Stop it," she said, her voice watery with tears. "Just stop."

"Eliza, please…"

"Spencer, sit down and shut up," she said, raising her voice. Her mind raced, switching lanes and blowing turns. He'd cut the brakes when his lips brushed her cheek, his breath ghosting across her skin until she could almost taste him on her mouth. Her heart thundered in her chest as she tried ineffectually to gather her thoughts. "Just stop- stop talking!"

He took a tentative step towards her and sank down onto the couch, looking at her cautiously. She turned her head, unable to look directly at him as she fought for control of herself. Her body buzzed with a myriad of furies. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw him collapse, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. She tasted blood as she dared to settle her sights on the hunch of his shoulders, those long elegant fingers tangled once again in his hair.

"I don't want… you can't do this to us," she said forcefully, wondering if he could tell she was begging as fervently as if she was on her knees in front of him. "I will not let you do this to us."

"I'm sorry," he murmured.

"Shut up and let me think," Eliza barked. "I need… I need a minute."

_A minute to figure out if I'm going to let you ruin us. To figure out how to undo what you just tried to do, without undoing it all. To figure out how to carry us when I'm so badly hurt and confused that I can't find the courage to look at you straight on._

She wasn't oblivious. She knew, and she believed he knew, that they were on a course that could lead to romantic love. She hadn't been close with more than a handful of her peers throughout her life, too intellectually driven and socially awkward to put much effort into stepping outside her comfort zone. She'd been pursued, and had yielded to that pursuit with varying consequences, but she'd never felt the urge to keep someone in her orbit the way she did Reid. Of course, there turned out to be little effort required there, so well suited were they to enjoy each other's company, on and off the job. The line they walked wasn't constantly at the forefront of her mind, either; there wasn't anything missing from their relationship, only possibilities for the future. She loved him, and thought he knew that, too, though she couldn't bring herself to say it to his face. She wasn't even a year into her dream job, and she didn't feel the need to be playing with matches when the _status quo_ seemed to suit them both well enough for the time being.

Now, Reid was forcing the issue in a fit of desperation, and she hated him for it. He had forced a perspective shift about which she'd been content to daydream. He'd made a notch on the timeline that could not be erased.

"The first time you kiss someone," she said finally, her voice trembling, "is something you'll remember for the rest of your relationship. Don't kiss me now because you had a terrible day."

He looked up slowly, half-hiding behind his hands.

"Don't," Eliza said again. Tears began to slide down her cheeks, and she let them. They felt right, messy and unruly. "Don't kiss me," she said, taking an unsteady breath as she forced down a wave of nausea that had nothing to do with her stomach. "Don't you dare kiss me for the first time because you're devastated. Don't you dare do that to me."

"Eliza," he whispered earnestly, his brown eyes shining with tears. "I am so sorry."

She crossed her arms over her chest as she resumed her seat on the couch, as far away from him as possible. Her teeth worried her lower lip and she struggled to reach some sort of equilibrium, something between what she'd offered and what he'd tried to take. Something that was fair, in a situation that was anything but. She searched his face, saw the wholehearted sincerity. Just as importantly, his terrified brown eyes showed no hint of betrayal or accusation, only full and fervent acceptance of culpability and desire for absolution.

 _This isn't_ _the worst day of his life_ , she thought, _but_ _it_ _'s close._

"I forgive you," she said flatly. She took another deep breath and tried to relax, to feel that clemency in her muscles and bones. "I forgive you."

"Can I talk now?" he asked quietly.

Eliza could taste the metallic tang of blood well on her lower lip. "Yes."

"I needed…" He paused and reconsidered his words, hyper-aware of every inch of his body relative to hers, the effect of his posture on her in the context of what he'd thoughtlessly begun. "I wanted something good."

"I don't mean to kick you when you're down, but that's not the compliment you think it is," she scoffed.

"It wasn't meant to be," Reid said meekly. He sat up and turned his body to face her, his hands clasped in a white-knuckle grip. He tried not to take it personally when she sat up a little straighter, effectively moving away from him. "You are my favorite person," he breathed. "I didn't- I didn't think," he added, exasperated. He tilted his head, searching for eye contact. "I was thoughtless and selfish and I am so sorry."

"I said I forgive you," she whispered weakly. She glanced at the door, a portal through which he'd all but begged her to go not an hour before. She wonder idly if that refusal made her culpable now. Her mind began to race again, searching for ways she could have conducted herself differently to avoid their jarring arrival at this intersection.

"I understand if you want to leave," he said quickly. "But it's almost two in the morning. I'd… feel better if you stayed. Please. I want you to be safe. I'm… sorry I made you feel unsafe." He closed his eyes and scrubbed at his face. He'd known heartache before, a deep emotional low like the one he bore when he'd committed his own mother. But this was more akin to the rock bottom desperation of his addiction to dilaudid. He felt this catastrophe in his bones, and it made him sick. "I messed up." His face twisted in a expression of self-loathing. "I fucked up. But you're safe with me, always. I swear to you."

Eliza shook her head, a rueful smile ghosting her lips. "I don't want to leave you here by yourself. I want to be here for you," she said, a feeble but familiar warmth returning to her voice. "And I absolutely feel safe with you. Always. Even when you fuck up."

Reid choked a sob, covering his eyes with his hand. He wanted desperately to say something, anything to make her understand how truly and deeply sorry he was, how cold he was with panic, how frightened he was by his own carelessness. How acutely his gut twisted and ached at that thought of what he'd almost done. How much he cared for her. How much he loved her. There weren't words for all of that, and he knew with a tormenting certainty that she didn't want to hear him simper in desperation. That his sincerity surely meant something to her in the absence of time, but not in this moment.

"If it's OK with you," she said slowly as the air between them began to settle. "I'm going to use your bathroom and get ready for bed. Will you set up the couch for me?"

Reid nodded. "Of course," he said, his voice thick with a dizzying array of emotions, from mortification to sorrow, from agony to relief. "Let me grab some sheets from the closet and then I'll wait out here until you're done."

"OK," Eliza agreed.

She took an unconscious step back as he stood from the couch, and something precious in him died a little.

* * *

"So, you wanna tell me what's going on with you and Spence?"

They were nearly four miles into their weekend run at Rock Creek Park when JJ stopped and planted her hands on her hips, a businesslike expression on her face.

"What do you mean?" Eliza asked, breathing heavily as she turned. She unconsciously mimicked the other woman's posture.

"Oh, try again," JJ said playfully.

Around them, coniferous trees rose gracefully towards the sky, dampening the sounds from the remainder of the urban park. The early morning sunshine gave an otherworldly glow to the trail and its surrounds. The light gave the words between them an air of levity, as if their conversation could stay in this place between them, on the warmly lit trail beneath the resurgent trees of spring.

"It's personal, JJ."

"Of course it is or the two of you wouldn't be…"

"No, I mean you know both of us," Eliza interrupted. "And you've known him a lot longer."

JJ frowned. "Is it so bad you think I'll have to pick a side?"

Eliza spied a log and sat, elbows on her knees, hands clasped together. "It's not bad… It's not… It's just something that happened," she said, eyes focused on an ultimately uninteresting stick on the edge of the trail.

"After Chicago," JJ said dully, taking a seat.

Eliza turned her head to assess her friend's expression. JJ's cheeks were flushed with exercise, but her eyes darkened with something less wholesome before flickering back to neutral. She reached out to squeeze JJ's hand briefly. "Yeah. After Chicago."

"Well," JJ said after a moment's silence, "I know how I reacted once I got home. I know it must have been hard on Will to handle me like that."

Eliza bit her lip. "Can I ask… How does Will support you? After a bad one like that?"

"There hasn't been one like that," JJ demurred, shaking her head. "Not for me, anyway."

"I'm sorry…"

"It's fine," JJ interrupted. "He made me scrambled eggs. With butter." She smiled warmly at the memory, how oddly bright the eggs seemed on her plate when Will placed it in front of her at two in the morning, an image of their 16-month-old son sleeping on the monitor next to the stove. "And bacon."

"Butter, huh." Eliza chuckled. "Maybe I should have tried that."

JJ breathed deeply next to her. "Will and I agreed when we began to live together that we'd never go to bed without talking about something like what happened in Chicago," JJ offered. "We're both in law enforcement, and we are witness to some terrible things. Sometimes things where 'terrible' isn't nearly a strong enough word. Will thinks it's important to put words to the 'madness in our minds,' he calls it." She mimicked his thick Louisiana accent, with admirable success. "So that when one of us is suffering, the other knows what's going on in there." JJ tapped her temple with a small smile. She shrugged. "He's better at sharing than I am," she admitted. "A lot better. And I know… I can be snappy to him on those days. I can be mean. And sometimes," she said with a pointed look at Eliza, "I say things I don't mean."

Eliza bit her lip. She considered the sincerity on her friend's face, what she had learned in the last 10 months about the other woman's character. Her composure. How JJ often went to Garcia when she needed a lift. How hard she tried to nurture the good she encountered rather than focus solely on the negatives.

"He meant what he said," Eliza said quietly.

"I'm sure he…"

"No," Eliza interrupted with a frustrated huff. "It wasn't mean."

"Oh." JJ shifted her seat on the log to fully take in the hunch of her friend's shoulders, the tilt of her face away from their exchange, as if focused on some far off atrocity. "Oh."

"Anyway," Eliza said, shaking her head. The sweat-dampened rope of her braid fell over her shoulder as she rose to her feet. She swung her arms cross body in front of her to get the blood moving again.

"'Anyway' nothing," JJ said gently, remaining seated. "Whatever he said…"

Turning to face up the trail, Eliza scratched at the nape of her neck. "I haven't decided how I feel about it so I'm not sure if there's any value in sharing an argument between me and Spencer with you."

"OK," JJ said levelly. "But it's been two weeks. Maybe it's time to talk about it with someone. It doesn't have to be me."

Eliza barked a laugh, spinning to face her again. "Of course it has to be you! Nobody knows him better!"

"Fine," JJ said, rising. She motioned up the trail. "Let's walk."

"Fine," Eliza mimicked, not feeling half as rude as she suspected she sounded.

They walked for a minute or two in silence. Eliza tried to organize her thoughts, to figure out how to explain the depth of her hurt without painting Reid in too harsh a light. After all, this was JJ, the person who'd occupied her own role once, as Reid's closest friend.

For her part, JJ waited patiently, projecting a supportive silence. JJ knew, if briefly, what it was to be the object of Reid's awkward affections. However, in her opinion as friend and observer to both parties, Reid was more self-aware and self-assured these years later, and JJ hadn't expected a rebuff from Eliza. Perhaps she'd underestimated the other woman's sense of professional decorum. The more she thought about it, the more obvious it was that Eliza stood to lose the majority of what she'd worked for the past year, if she entered a relationship the Bureau considered unacceptable, or if the relationship ended badly.

"OK, what are _you_ thinking about?" Eliza asked. 

JJ chuckled mirthlessly. "How much more we stand to lose for every decision we make."

"Compared to men or to what we have to gain?"

JJ shook her head. "Both."

"He told me I'm his favorite person," Eliza said quietly, last autumn's leaves swishing beneath their feet as they walked. The sun was beginning to warm, a beautiful day ahead on the heels of an idyllic morning.

"And?"

"...after I yelled at him for trying to kiss me."

"Well, crap."

Eliza stopped and threw her hands in the air. "Right? What the fuck was he thinking?" The dam broke and the leftover confusion and hurt from that night began to pour out of her like a flood. "He had a panic attack and he wanted me to leave because he could feel it coming and I coached him through some breathing exercises and then he tried to kiss me! What the fuck was he thinking?"

JJ bit back a grin as she processed the information and tried to balance it with her friend's distress. "Sounds like he wasn't thinking," she offered, inviting the verbal barrage to continue.

"Of course he wasn't thinking!" Eliza barged on. "He wouldn't have done it if he was thinking. How am I supposed to feel about that?" She stomped her foot and was immediately embarrassed. "Sorry."

"Eliza," JJ said gently, a small smile on her lips. "Spence is a very intelligent man. But socially, he's an idiot."

"Fucking idiot," Eliza muttered.

JJ paused, weighing the wisdom of her next words. They were alone in the woods, in this sunny green place with the rich smell of cedar and dirt. It felt like a moment outside of time, something they could pretend to forget if they wanted to, so surreal was the feeling in the air. "You know he's in love with you, right?" she said finally.

Eliza sighed, her voice uncharacteristically small when she said, "Yes, I know that."

"So is the problem the sentiment or the timing?"

"What he did isn't fair," Eliza said defensively.

"No, it sounds like it wasn't."

"It… in the moment, it didn't matter to me how I felt about him. Or how I thought he felt about me. Or what he was feeling or whether he was thinking clearly or not. I felt taken advantage of."

"I'm sorry," JJ offered sincerely. She noted the tension in Eliza's jaw. "What else happened?"

"Nothing," Eliza said quickly. "He apologized, he meant it, and I forgave him. He asked me not to leave, so I slept on the couch." Her face fell, tears pricking at the back of her eyes. She sniffed to clear them. "I could hear him crying in his room for almost an hour. I couldn't sleep. I felt like I'd betrayed him, and that made me so angry. It was like…"

"You were gaslighting yourself," JJ suggested.

"I certainly wasn't second-guessing myself," Eliza said bitterly. "I stood up for myself. But I had to kick him when he was down to do it. And I do forgive him. But I'm still angry at what happened. I want it not to have happened."

JJ took a step up the trail, and Eliza followed suit. "I imagine you both want that," JJ said gently. "Promise not to bite my head off if I suggest something?"

"I won't make a promise I can't keep," Eliza said smartly, shaking off what she could of the mood she'd sunk into. "But I'll try."

"You might have to be the bigger person here," JJ said matter-of-factly. "Stop acting like you forgive him and start acting like you used to." She paused and said more kindly, "Stop acting like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop and maybe he'll stop acting like a chastised puppy."

"Oh, god," Eliza laughed at the visual. It didn't matter that JJ's solution was overly simple. It was a solution, something to try. "As if it's that easy," she said, silently wishing it could be.

"I've known him longer, and I know him better," JJ said, echoing Eliza's words back to her. "Whatever you do, he'll follow your lead. I'm sure of it."

Eliza nodded in thought. "And all this stays between us?"

"Every word," JJ promised. "Race you back to the car, D1?" she taunted, lowering her voice comically in an imitation of Morgan.

"JJ," Eliza whined as the other woman took off running back towards the trailhead. Then, she followed JJ down the trail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I'll fix it!


End file.
